At a recent Zoom meeting, President Trish Pemberton and members of Rotary welcomed Acting Inspector Andy Boyd, pictured, from Newton Aycliffe Police as their speaker. The police officer told us that he joined Durham Constabulary in 1995 and since then, had been posted to Bishop Auckland, Crook and Shildon and had held roles both on response teams and in CID. In 2016, he was promoted to Sergeant and then in 2018, was posted to Newton Aycliffe as Neighbourhood Sergeant. Andy told us that he loves his job and a recent promotion to Acting Inspector means that he is even more involved with our community, where he sees the amazing work done by charities, councillors, and volunteers, such as ourselves.
Andy went on to say, “overall, crime in Newton Aycliffe is quite low. However, one of the main problems was anti-social behaviour which tended to be concentrated around certain areas of the town. The neighbourhood policing team was quite small but were highly motivated and had a good working knowledge of the area and the people, and maintained useful contacts with many of the community organisations. The aim of the team is to problem solve around issues causing the most amount of harm to the community”.
He informed us that a recent initiative was the intention to set up a Community Hub in the town which would be a multi-agency help centre for residents, that anyone could access for assistance in finding the right support with a problem. Andy acknowledged that there were already many organisations, charities and community groups achieving great things in the community, but no central premises pulling them all together. A model used in Stanley, called PACT House, was referred to, where a multitude of different partners could be housed addressing vulnerability across the town. Andy is currently working with Paul Howell MP on this idea and searching for funding, and suitable central premises to house the project. Any business or individual who can assist with these objectives, should contact him either through the Newton Aycliffe Police Facebook page or the Rotary Facebook page.
