Essex Police launch neighbourhood policing team in Clacton

Essex Police have launched their new neighbourhood policing team (NPT) initiative which will add 74 officers across the county.

Renamed from community policing teams, the initiative for Clacton has a big emphasis on being more present on the streets of the district and for people to have someone they can come to with any issue big or small.

Conversation - Deputy chief constable, Rachel Nolan in discussion with neighbourhood policing team members (Image: Al Underwood) Over the past year, officers who make up these teams made about 10 per cent of all arrests in the county.

For north Essex, this new initiative will add 30 members, taking the total number of dedicated neighbourhood officers to 211.

Presence - District commander, Stuart Austin was in conversation with the public as the roamed the streets of Clacton (Image: Al Underwood) To mark the move, recently appointed district commander Stuart Austin spent time alongside police, fire and crime commissioner Roger Hirst, Deputy Chief Constable Rachel Nolan and members of their newly announced team.

Ms Nolan spoke of the importance of having more officers on the ground.

Support - Police, fire and crime commissioner Roger Hirst (middle right) and Deputy Chief Constable, Rachel Nolan (left) were engaged in conversation with a couple of the neighbourhood policing team members (Image: Al Underwood) She said: "By being able to grow our neighbour police and being out and about, people really value knowing their officers and being able to talk to them.

"For me, neighbourhood teams are all about preventing crime.

Smiles - Deputy chief constable, Rachel Nolan (left) and district commander, Stuart Austin were enjoying meeting members of the public (Image: Al Underwood) "The important part is people know their local officer, police constables and specials, so they can talk to them and it means them being part of the community.

"The aim of neighbourhood policing is to make sure there are teams in every town, every rural community and you know what’s going on.

"It’s also important to work with partners to make areas safer and to demonstrate all the good things we do, because I’ve been in policing a long time and most of the biggest and most important jobs start with intelligence which comes from neighbourhood policing."

Whilst on patrol to mark the launch of the new initiative two teenage boys were arrested and a knife was seized - an example of the increased power on the ground working immediately.

Tending district commander Stuart Austin said: “The results of proactive and visible policing on the streets of Clacton were plain to see on Friday. 

“If not for the intervention of my officers, it is plain a knife could well have been used to cause serious harm in this incident.

“Your neighbourhood policing team will be tackling a really wide range of offending as they patrol and engage with people across Tendring."

Chief Insp Austin, who was formerly with the Colchester community policing team, spoke about how the new teams will deter criminals from committing crimes whether they are big or small.

He said: “Across Tendring we have seven new neighbourhood officers who are coming to the district, with three going to Clacton town centre, two going to Harwich and two into the wider Tendring community."

Chief Insp Austin's has set out his priorities. 

He said: “My three priorities as district commander are visible and accessible policing, reducing crime – even though it’s down if you look at pre-Covid, I want to do more to drive it down - but most importantly something which isn’t spoken about enough is to solve more crime and those neighbourhood crimes which are important to people.

“This could be anything like shoplifting, theft from motor vehicles, theft of motor vehicles – those crimes we know impact neighbourhoods and impact people, so these officers are going to be really key to solving it.”

He also addressed concerns over the Clacton custody suite being closed and the quick reinstation of PCSOs after they were initially scrapped.

“I’m really happy we’re retaining our PCSOs, they’re a key part of our policing and they do an excellent job," he said. 

“When I went around the district within my first month of being here, everybody knows them which is great and what we want our neighbourhood teams to get to as well.

“They do so much for engagement, working with communities, but also attending parish council meetings, charity groups and speed enforcement, so they’re really key and I’m happy we get to keep and retain them.

“Yes, Clacton custody has shut but Essex Police is investing £2.5million into custody across the force. What it’s meant is we’ve had to make some difficult decisions about our model and structure going down from seven to five custodies across Essex.

“This will mean of course officers will have to travel longer to book prisoners in, however the investment in custody has allowed us to put an extra 25 sergeants into custody and recruit designated detention officers.”