PCC weekly highlights: Listening to community, elected officials, and policing concerns
Last week (13th- 19th January) Police and Crime Commissioner Clare Moody attended eight public facing events and meetings, across the force area and nationally. During the visits a number of key issues including police visibility, crime reporting, community safety, knife crime, anti-social behaviour, and areas for collaboration etc were discussed.
International Policing Symposium
On Wednesday 15th, Clare was on a panel at an international policing symposium held at Weston Pavillion in London. The theme of the symposium was Confidence in Policing: serving the public in the age of disruption.
Clare contributed to the discussion by sharing some of the work and experience from Avon and Somerset, stressing the importance of visibility, trust, confidence, transparency, and accountability.
On Trust and Confidence Clare said: “Trust-building strategies must focus on both immediate actions—such as improving response times—and systemic change, particularly for groups with historically low confidence in policing.
“There is a need for commitment to understanding the communities we all serve and recognising the different ways life experiences shape perceptions of safety and policing which can allow for more empathetic, effective responses to community concerns.”
The symposium brought together a distinguished group of Chief constables, Police and Crime Commissioners, representatives of national government agencies as well as think-tank leaders and academics. The served as a platform for sharing insights, discussing challenges, and exploring innovative approaches to enhancing public trust and confidence in law enforcement.
After the symposium, Clare joined the National Knife Crime Taskforce meeting. The national group aims to prevent, tackle and reduce “knife-enabled robbery”, focusing on regions which has the highest rate of knife crime offences in England and Wales.
Meeting businesses and communities in Somerset West
On Thursday 16th, Clare met with representatives of the Bridgwater Chamber of Commerce to discuss key issues affecting the local business community. Issues range from anti-social behaviour, shoplifting, police visibility and response, and general community safety concerns etc. The discussion also explored some of the steps that could be taken to tackle some of the challenges e.g. keep reporting incidents of crime, frequent police patrols etc.
On the same day, Clare attended the Somerset Council Leader and PCC Bi-annual meeting, where she gave an update about her agreed Police and Crime Plan priorities and that she was working on an Action Plan. They also discussed resourcing pressures, local policing, and community safety concerns among other issues and how they can work together to address the issues.
Minehead and Tiverton issues highlighted
On the same day Thursday 16th, Clare met with Rachel Gilmour MP for Tiverton and Minehead. Clare and Rachel discussed key issues affecting the community, among them police visibility, crime reporting, community safety, and the factors leading to crime, as well as much more. To understand the issues affecting the community, Clare together with Rachel visited Williton, Watchet, and Minehead.
They first visited Williton where members of the Parish council and Neighbourhood Policing Team met them to discuss key local concerns, especially police responsiveness and issues relating to travel routes. Clare talked about her Police and Crime Plan priorities and encouraged people to report to the police any crime related incidents.
After listening to councillors’ concerns, Clare and Rachel discussed what might be done to tackle some of the issues and how to improve the face-to-face interactions between police and locals.
On Friday 17th, Clare also welcomed North Somerset MP Sadik Al-Hassan at Police Headquarters in Portishead. They discussed policing concerns in Hassan’s constituency. Hassan also had the opportunity to visit the Police contact centre to see how staff handle calls from the public.