Hello to all reading this, The Neighbourhood, Response and Crime teams working out of Newton Aycliffe have been busy responding to a variety of incidents across the area over the past week, including concerns for safety, missing persons, domestic incidents and harassment.
Below is a snapshot of what we have been up to:
On Monday, officers attended an address off Central Avenue working alongside the RSPCA and local vets to rescue a variety wildlife. This was on the back of information received from members of the public who had expressed concerns about the conditions birds and fish in particular, were being kept in at the address. Under the Animal Welfare Act a number of animals, birds and fish were recovered.
On Tuesday, PCSO Todd completed a Herbert Protocol for a local resident. We have been supporting some vulnerable members of our community suffering with dementia by linking in with them and their loved ones and signing them up to the Herbert protocol. If you know someone vulnerable in this way, please contact us on herbertprotocol@durham.pnn.police.uk or message the Facebook page and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
Wednesday saw the installation of our new CCTV cameras. This sees five new rapid deployment cameras located in different areas of the town which can move within a short time frame. The project is GAMP funded from all seven of the town’s County Councillors, supported by funding from Great Aycliffe Town Council and Livin. So a massive thank you to them, the county council, PC Welch and the Neighbourhood team that worked hard to get them up and running. We really hope that this reassures you that we are committed to reducing Anti-Social Behaviour and Crime in Newton Aycliffe.
On Thursday, Officers attended a year 11 leavers gathering next to the athletics track to the rear of Woodham School. Officers attended after a report of a 100 persons fighting, however when officers attended there were no issues and those there present were enjoying celebrating the end of their secondary education. We are not the fun police and ensured that all present were behaving themselves and properly safeguarded.
On Friday, PCSO Todd was out in the community with Humankind getting ‘Ahead of the Arrest’. This is a joint initiative targeting members of the community who are suffering with drug or alcohol misuse. The aim here is to help those suffering in silence, getting them the support they need before it gets to crisis point, or they are committing offences which lead to them being arrested. This has been running for a couple of months now and around a third of all visited are now engaging with Humankind programmes.
On Saturday we ensured we patrolled the areas that have been reported to have issues based on the calls to Police and the messages on Facebook. We patrolled the Town Centre and Western Area of Newton Aycliffe. We engaged with a number of youths, and in the main it appeared that all were behaving themselves.
Lastly, if you haven’t already and have a spare minute, please sign up to ‘Keep in the Know’ where you can receive regular alerts from the team here on what’s happening around the town, such as crime updates and road closures. It’s completely free and you can sign up by visiting www.keepintheknow.co.uk/content/pages/sign-up.
Have a good week and stay safe.
PCSO 8737 Middleton