New committee launched to tackle crime on Canvey (From Echo)

New committee launched to tackle crime on Canvey

3:10pm Monday 29th October 2012 in News

A NEW crime reduction panel has been set up to help make Canvey a safer place to live.

Canvey Town Council launched the committee this week in a bid to help tackle low-level crime and disorder on the island and reduce the fear of crime in the community.

Concerns have been raised crime on Canvey could increase after the opening hours for the island’s police station were scaled back to noon to 6pm Monday to Saturday as part of sweeping police cuts across the county.

Similar fears were also raised after the island’s only youth centre, Images, in Furtherwick Road, closed in May.

Now, residents will be able to attend monthly meetings to report what crimes are prevalent in their area.

The panel would then seek to obtain funding to start up community projects to help curb the problems.

Dave Blackwell, town councillor and leader of the Canvey Independent Party, said: “We feel people need to have more of a voice in how to tackle crime in their area. The idea is to get residents involved as much as possible so that we can find proactive ways of addressing problems specific to Canvey.

“For example, not all anti-social can be a police matter, and could be solved by us seeking out funding for schemes to address problems more directly.”

A similar crime reduction partnership is currently run by Castle Point Council in conjunction with Rochford Council.

However, the town council hopes the new committee for Canvey will help improve relationships between councillors, police and residents on the island to have a harder stamp on crime.

Chris Wood, Castle Point District Inspector for Essex Police has welcomed the idea.

Mr Wood said: “I think if people locally want to take action to reduce crime then clearly that can only be a good thing. Obviously there may be some difficulty as Castle Point as a whole already has a crime reduction panel but as long as they work well together it can only be for the better.

“Any information we receive from residents about crime in their area is invaluable to us, so we always try to encourage people to come forward and report incidents.”

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