Humber Talking – where we’ve been and what we’re doing

Forcewide – Message from Humberside Police:-

28 Mar 2019

You’re probably aware by now of our forcewide initiative Humber Talking which has been rolled out across the force area over the last few months. 

Over the past couple of weeks we have started to see you in Scunthorpe, Goole, north Hull, and on Tuesday this week in Bridlington. It’s been great to meet local residents, to have a chat and speak about what’s good in the areas where you live, as well as hearing your concerns.

During the early stages of Humber Talking some feedback you gave us was that the survey we ask you to fill in was too long. So we listened and we’ve streamlined it to a handful of simple questions that takes just a few minutes to complete. 

We’re glad you told us about that because that means we can come and see more of you in a shorter amount of time.

The questions are about what’s good in your area, what the issues are that affect your communities, how confident you are that we’ll be there when you need us, and if there’s anyone vulnerable living near you think might need support. 

Here are just some of the things you’ve told us and what we’ve done:  

Hull North

In north Hull in just two days we visited 464 houses and 184 surveys were filled in. 42 people signed up to www.mycommunityalert.co.uk and we left details of how to sign up if people wanted to at a later date.

That means that over those two days nearly 39.5% of you took the survey which is a lot more than we anticipated. It’s great that more of you are getting involved.

222 people weren’t in so we left our cards saying that we’d be popping around again to get the opinions of everyone that we missed. 

We’re visiting everyone in north Hull over the next couple of weeks or so and we’re currently collating the information we’ve got from you. It’ll be the turn of Hull East next. We’re looking forward to seeing you. ​

Goole

In Goole your main concerns are road safety, parking issues, fly tipping, and dog fouling. 

In terms of road safety and parking problems, the main areas of concern were on Western Road, Pasture Road, and Centenary Road. Our roads policing officers are continuing to work with Safer Roads Humber to provide road safety awareness and promote casualty reduction. It’s good to know where the specific problem areas are.

The issues surrounding parking, dog fouling and fly tipping are an opportunity for us to highlight them to East Riding of Yorkshire Council who have their own enforcement powers and work to combat these problems. 

While these issues were flagged up to us, we had some incredibly positive feedback in that 60% of you had ‘no issues’ where you live and 45% of you were ‘completely’ confident that we will be there when you need us. 

That’s really great to hear, but it doesn’t mean we’re resting on our laurels. We want to know what you’re worried about so we can act.

Scunthorpe

We’ve started in the Frodingham ward of Scunthorpe and the stand out responses we got were that everyone felt there was a good community spirit, they had good neighbours, and it was friendly. 

This is very important to us as we feel people living in Scunthorpe do look out for each other and have each other’s backs as well as work well with us. We want that to continue. 

Fly tipping is a problem as well as street lighting, dog fouling and what the area looks like. North Lincolnshire Council has its own teams who can address these, while we can tackle anything that is a policing issue. 

Drug dealing and taking, and nuisance motorbikes were mentioned. Our proactive teams have executed numerous drugs warrants in Scunthorpe, made arrests and continue to gather and act on information from local communities about any criminality relating to drugs. 

In partnership with the council we also served a closure notice at a house on Frodingham Road to prevent antisocial behaviour and drugs at the property. This was the first ever in North Lincolnshire. 

This is part of ongoing work and we always encourage anyone with information to contact us about any concerns regarding drugs.

When we look at nuisance motorbike riding, we have a forcewide initiative called Operation Yellowfin which is specifically directed towards motorbike theft and related crime. If people are worried about motorbike crime then we want to know. Our teams update the seizures of illegal motorbikes regularly on social media. If you have any information, always say #OpYellowfin to us. 

Bridlington

On just one day on Tuesday 26 March we visited residents living on 17 out of the 211 streets we are coming to. That’s 422 households in a day! Around 40% of those people completed a survey. 

We’re now looking at the information you passed on. An early emerging picture is that the issues people are concerned about in Bridlington involve our partner agencies as well – these include litter, parking, homelessness, unemployment, and closure of amenities as well as ASB, drugs and burglary or theft. 

We now have a better idea of your concerns and are working with the council and support agencies to address them. 

Superintendent Jenny Bristow, who is in charge of Humber Talking, said: “It’s really great to see people getting involved in the surveys and letting us know where we need to focus our efforts along with our partners. 

“What I am really excited about is the positives that are coming out from people. 

“All too often we hear the negatives when actually we should be celebrating the community spirit that has been seen in all the locations we have been to so far. I am sure will continue with the other areas. 

“I also want to thank my staff for helping each other out to cover more houses quickly. They are doing a great job and are looking forward to meeting and speaking to even more people as soon as we can.”

Some background on Humber Talking can be found here: https://www.humberside.police.uk/humber-talking