North Wales Police Web Chat
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Posts
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Quick post to say that on Thursday 22nd we will be hosting another web chat with Inspector Paul Wycherley and Sergeant Simon Kneale who will be taking any questions you may have about crime and policing in Wrexham, particularly the town centre!
Any questions please them below / or ask them live on Thursday
Alternatively you can ask them anonymously by emailing them to us on [email protected]
Thanks!
The dramatic increase in anti-social behaviour and groups of drug/alcohol addicts around the town is undeniably linked to the increase in service providers during the same period, in particular those around the Grosvenor Road/Rhosddu area. As a reminder, within the space of a few hundred yards we have:
– Champions House (Grove Road)
– CAIS (Grove Park Road)
– Community Drugs and Alcohol Service (Rhosddu Road)
– Wrexham Conflict Resolution Service (Grosvenor Road)
– Ty Croeso (Grosvenor Road)
– TASS (Grosvenor Road)
– St Johns Project (Chester Road)In addition to these, there has been an equally noticeable increase in HMO properties facilitating drug/alcohol/crime rehabilitation, again, mainly concentrated around the Rhosddu area but not exclusively. On trips in to the town centre over the past 3 months my family and I have witnessed:
• General Drug/alcohol abuse around Rhosddu, Waterworld, Llywn Isaf
• 3 Intoxicated men collapsing on the pavement in front of whilst crossing from the old Groves school to St Johns House
• Urinating against the Guild Hall in Llwyn Isaf – 3 occasions
• A man defecting at the front of the Ebaneser Chapel before scurrying off to join the rest of the group gathered behind it.
These were just examples of incidents witnessed during the day time. I wouldn’t consider walking near these areas after dark any more.To steer you away from a generic ‘we’re doing all we can’ response, perhaps you can provide specific answers to the following:
1. Can you confirm whether drug/alcohol abusers are being transported to Wrexham from neighbouring towns to take advantage of the types of services listed above?
2. Have you previously had, or do you now intend to have, an active advisory role with planning officers and the planning committee when applications for drug/alcohol service providers are being considered?
3. No doubt you are personally frustrated (and I would hope, a little embarrassed) that your foot patrol officers continually pass by well-known trouble spots such as the Peace Gardens, Ebaneser Church, Llywn Isaf, without making any effort to tackle the anti-social behaviour. Can you confirm that you have an action plan for these areas, considering that some are literally within 50 yards of the police station?
4. Finally, did you make any contribution to the development of the recent town centre master plan, in particular how achieving a permanent solution to anti-social behaviour in the centre links in with the desire to create and prosperous to economy where people aspire to work, shop and socialise?Regards,
Adam
Adam. I 100% ‘LIKE’ everything you have said. You have phrased these issues much more succinctly than I could. I await with interest a reply tomorrow.
The ARCH initiative is also moving into Grosvenor Road. Are we in a situation where the problems are just moved around the town with no prospect of any solutions being found? Do the police know of any successful initiatives undertaken by other police forces?
Once the Police Station has re-located to Llay, there will be less likelyhood of anti-social behaviour in close proximity to it. Problem solved.
A little late starting but this is about to kick off now!
Posts from Inspector Paul Wycherley will be posted under his name, and Inspector Simon Kneale will be using Darryl’s account to post.
I will be posting up questions we have had emailed, tweeted, DM’ed , Facebooked, Pigeon’ed etc over to us!
[quote quote=101880]The dramatic increase in anti-social behaviour and groups of drug/alcohol addicts around the town is undeniably linked to the increase in service providers during the same period, in particular those around the Grosvenor Road/Rhosddu area. As a reminder, within the space of a few hundred yards we have:
– Champions House (Grove Road)
– CAIS (Grove Park Road)
– Community Drugs and Alcohol Service (Rhosddu Road)
– Wrexham Conflict Resolution Service (Grosvenor Road)
– Ty Croeso (Grosvenor Road)
– TASS (Grosvenor Road)
– St Johns Project (Chester Road)In addition to these, there has been an equally noticeable increase in HMO properties facilitating drug/alcohol/crime rehabilitation, again, mainly concentrated around the Rhosddu area but not exclusively. On trips in to the town centre over the past 3 months my family and I have witnessed:
• General Drug/alcohol abuse around Rhosddu, Waterworld, Llywn Isaf
• 3 Intoxicated men collapsing on the pavement in front of whilst crossing from the old Groves school to St Johns House
• Urinating against the Guild Hall in Llwyn Isaf – 3 occasions
• A man defecting at the front of the Ebaneser Chapel before scurrying off to join the rest of the group gathered behind it.
These were just examples of incidents witnessed during the day time. I wouldn’t consider walking near these areas after dark any more.To steer you away from a generic ‘we’re doing all we can’ response, perhaps you can provide specific answers to the following:
1. Can you confirm whether drug/alcohol abusers are being transported to Wrexham from neighbouring towns to take advantage of the types of services listed above?
2. Have you previously had, or do you now intend to have, an active advisory role with planning officers and the planning committee when applications for drug/alcohol service providers are being considered?
3. No doubt you are personally frustrated (and I would hope, a little embarrassed) that your foot patrol officers continually pass by well-known trouble spots such as the Peace Gardens, Ebaneser Church, Llywn Isaf, without making any effort to tackle the anti-social behaviour. Can you confirm that you have an action plan for these areas, considering that some are literally within 50 yards of the police station?
4. Finally, did you make any contribution to the development of the recent town centre master plan, in particular how achieving a permanent solution to anti-social behaviour in the centre links in with the desire to create and prosperous to economy where people aspire to work, shop and socialise?Regards,
Adam
Good afteroon.
By the way I never issue generic replies as i hate people in public service “ducking” questions So, in the order you raised them:
(1) There is evidence that services available in Wrexham are promoted by areas other than our own. Wrexham is seen as an area with good services for people in need. This generally means those who are homeless and so of course some of those will be users of drugs/those with alcohol dependancy. I have heard anecdotal comments that some areas have closed thier provisions for people in need due to financial constraints and directed persons here. This has been discussed at the multi agency Services of Wrexham Action Group which is a forum where representatives of the service providers attend, as do Council officials , Police and others. At the most recent meeting I am aware that Ian Lucas MP attended and spoke about these issues and sought to bring about improvements. that is work on going.
(2) We are not formally consulted when these types of applications are considered. However, applications of this type will in future discussed at the Services of Wrexham Advisory Group (see above) and as the Police are represented at that group we will be able to have an opinion going forward.
(3) It depends what the anti social behaviour is. If we have persons sitting on a bench drinking that is not, in itself, anti social. When the drinking is accompanied by other anti social behaviour that we can act. We remove drink from them and ultimately arrest offenders. We cannot be everywhere at once and so on occasions the kind of behaviour you describe does unfortunately go unchecked. That concerns me as we are desparately trying to give a decent service. I am not sure what you mean by “action plan”. What we do have is a “patrol plan” which I imagine is the same thing. This is a plab for the days patrol, drawing on reported instances over previous days. the hope is by having that plan that our resources will be in the right place at the right time, that siad numbers of available officers are finite and so as i said we cannot be everywhere.
(4). Yes – we have regular meetings (on a multi agency level) in our anti social behaviour tasking group where we discuss persons/incidents that cause us the most demand and which concern the public. This group influences a number of County level plans. It is really difficult to get the balance right though. We had over 250 complaints of a beggar in the town centre over mant months. You would, rightly, expect us to deal with that due to the volume of people who complained and after trying all measures available to us to assist the gent who was in apparent need we ended up applyingto the Court for an order preventing him from attending that area. We had many complaints for doing so…so it is really dificult sometimes to get this sort of thing exacly right.I hope that answers your questions comprehensively, if not come and see me in the police station and I will discuss further.
J P Wycherley Inspector.
[quote quote=101889]Once the Police Station has re-located to Llay, there will be less likelyhood of anti-social behaviour in close proximity to it. Problem solved.
the Llay build is a Divisional headquarters and new custody suite, Wrexham town centre will have a new station built in Llwyn Isaf and the build will start in January2016.
Paul Wycherley.
[quote quote=101887]
The ARCH initiative is also moving into Grosvenor Road. Are we in a situation where the problems are just moved around the town with no prospect of any solutions being found? Do the police know of any successful initiatives undertaken by other police forces?
[/quote]
Good afternoon, many thanks for your question.
We work closely with several partner agencies to deal with service users or individuals who may have drink / drug dependencies. The SWAG (Services of Wrexham Action Group) is a key strategic meeting where we discuss the issues at hand. North Wales Police take responsibility in these partnerships for the ASB and crime issues but clearly this is often a small part of the overarching issue. It is important to recognise the root causes and address these proactively with the relevant services, including Health and Education.As for initiatives in other areas, the UK Police service are very good at sharing best practice and we will always adopt successful initiatives to tackle the issues in our area. However, as I have already mentioned, due to the nature of the issues you have raised, these initiatives will most certainly be in partnership with Mental Health Teams, Housing, Education, Health, Substance misuse and local authority leads.
I do not feel whatsoever that we are moving the problem around the town in any way. We work closely with these other agencies and will always tackle issues raised in specific areas.
Question about speed cameras…
“I saw on wrexham.com’s twitter the other day that a speed camera was parked in front of a bus stop. i’ve seen one previously on a pavement and parked near the driveway of someones house. where can speed cameras legally park and who can we report them to if they are obstructing an entrance?”
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