But, while budget cuts have forced many police forces in the UK to get rid of officers - Surrey Police has taken a different approach, retaining and even bolstering officer numbers while launching a new Policing in Your Neighbourhood (PIYN) model in 2016, fundamentally shifting how its resources are used.
In the third of a series of articles looking at the changing nature of policing in Farnham, the Herald hopes to challenge the perception that recent cuts have left Farnham without a police presence - shedding light on the role of the town’s neighbourhood officers, who have been based at Farnham Fire Station since the town’s police station was sold in 2011.
On Wednesday last week (March 21), Herald reporter Lettie Buxton went ‘on the beat’ with Police Sergeant (PS) Mel Sefton and Police Constable (PC) Barry “Basil” Baldwin initially, before joining PS Andy Crane and PC Will Davies in Farnham.
Whilst the team try to stick to their allotted patches, Andy says they are “perfectly flexible” and will move around depending on “where the problem solving is required, where the chronic problems are, where the crime series might be, where there’s a trend to suggest that maybe we’re having this problem in this area”.
The SNT also deal with the following, but are not limited to:
* Property closures, both full (everyone leaves) and partial (everyone except the tenant leaves)
* Criminal Behaviour Orders (CBO)
* Working with the Area Police Team (APT), who respond to 999 calls, if an issue is reoccurring and chronic
* Creating a Serious Organised Crime (SOC) profile for the borough, including intel gathering
* Engagement plans to target hard to reach groups
* Educating people on Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) and gathering intelligence
* Scams including postal, online and telephone.
“When you really need us, we’ll be there” is the message that the neighbourhood team want to send out to residents, as Mel explains that the “demand has changed, we deal with threat, harm and risk, and safeguarding”.
1.30pm: We took to an unmarked police car and headed to an area which had been marked as a hotspot following a spate of burglaries.
Mel explained that her and Basil were looking out for “people that are working in the area, I’m looking out for property that’s insecure, I’m looking out for suspect vehicles, vehicles that may not look suspect to anyone else but might to us, might be vehicles that we might know, people that we might know”.
2pm: Just as the officers were explaining what crime prevention advice they give to residents, Mel got out to check an open door in the residential estate.
Thankfully it turned out to be innocent as the resident was filling a bucket with water to clean his car, but seemed extremely grateful and reassured by his visit from Mel.
Around 2.10pm: All of a sudden as we drove past a white transit van, Basil turned the car around and went after it.
The van shot off after seemingly spotting the officers inside the car and we lost it.
We came out onto a main road but the officers, almost instinctively, knew that “wasn’t quite right” and proceeded to head back into the residential roads.
Sure enough, the first road we turned into we found the van “dumped” outside somebody’s house with no sign of the driver.
Mel went straight to an onlooking neighbour who confirmed the van had only just pulled up, while Basil called in the incident, got a reference number created and phoned Andy and Will.
He asked them to drive around the area to see if they could spot somebody waiting to be picked up near any of the alleyways.
Basil then proceeded to “do a check on the vehicle to see who it’s registered to just in case it’s known to us, if there’s no joy or it’s not registered - it might be registered to one of these houses in which case we’ll go and have a chat - if not we’ll knock on a few doors to see if anybody’s seen anything.
“And then failing that, if nobody seems to know whose it is then we’ll dig deeper.”
Within five minutes of Basil calling in the incident there were three police cars, including us, in the area searching for the driver.
2.30pm: We left the scene and continued to drive around the area.
As we drove down a road behind the scene, the officers spotted an open gate and Basil was quick to investigate.
It was another dead end though, as it turned out to be a window cleaner.
Mel and Basil debated whether they could issue a ticket for obstruction, but as the van was not stopping the residents from leaving their home a ticket could not be given.
Basil also mentioned that the first thing he had noticed about the driver was that they were on their mobile phone and said: “Particularly with burglars and other criminals, if you’re stopping them they’ll be argumentative if there isn’t a blatant reason why you’ve stopped them.”
As we headed to the Farnham post to meet Andy and Will, the officers were quick to point out that although they had left the scene, they were still investigating it.
When we arrived at the base, Will added: “Now we’re building a picture and we’re sharing the information.”
4.15pm: Andy and Will took back to the roads to carry out similar look-outs around Farnham town and gathered intelligence.
We then drove back to the location of the van, which remained dumped outside a residents driveway.
Even on the drive back to the Godalming base, which is co-located with Waverley Borough Council (WBC), the team were ‘intel’ gathering and mentally noting familiar faces.
When the Herald went to print the driver of the van hadn’t yet been found, but the van was moved later Wednesday night.
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