Warwickshire News Mine

But Councillor Mike Gittus (Warwickshire County Council), Councillor Sue Adams (Stratford-on-Avon District Council) and Councillor Eric Payne (Stratford-on-Avon District Council and Chair of Alcester Town Council Community Committee) hadn’t done anything wrong to attract the attention of the law… 

They had teamed up with Warwickshire Police to offer a councillors’ drop-in surgery for local people aboard the mobile police station, which regularly goes out on tour around Alcester and surrounding villages.

The aim was to give local people the opportunity to air their concerns and make suggestions to the councillors face-to-face in their own neighbourhoods, just as they have been doing with officers from the area’s Safer Neighbourhood Teams on the mobile police station for some time.

The idea of inviting Councillors along originally came from a Police Community Support Officer who knew the importance of partner working through Community Forum meetings. 

County Councillor Mike Gittus said: “Communication is always the key to helping people with their day to day problems. Partnerships, such as this one with the Police, are an ideal way of direct involvement with the community.
Being a ‘desk jockey’ is never a way of building up confidence in public services.” 
District Councillor Sue Adams said: “Face-to-face discussions with residents in a less formal setting is important.”

District and Town Councillor Eric Payne said: “Working in partnership with other agencies in this way is ideal and good for the community as a whole, and also enhances our efforts to achieve community engagement.”

Alcester South Safer Neighbourhoods Team Sergeant, Stuart Wilde, said: 

"Safer Neighbourhood Teams, particularly in rural areas, have been using mobile police stations for some years as we know it is important that we go to our communities rather than expecting them to come to us.  We need people to tell us what matters to them so that we can work with our other partners such as councils to address issues."
The next partnership mobile station round of the area is on 22 October from 9am - 1pm, and details and locations can be found at http://www.safer-neighbourhoods.co.uk/as where you can also find dates of Community Forum meetings and other police drop in times.

If people need to report information about crime, rather than wait for a mobile police station visit, this should be done immediately by calling the Warwickshire Police non-emergency number: 01926 415000.

Link to WCC