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Out and About in Dorset

Out and About in Dorset

This week I was pleased to see the Government has announced further funding of £125 million for councils across England to help domestic abuse victims and their children rebuild their lives in a safe environment.

The funding will go to make sure safe accommodation spaces, such as refuges and shelters, can provide victims with vital support services including healthcare, social workers, and benefits. I am particularly pleased to see that both BCP Council and Dorset Council have received funding, BCP receiving £750,000 and Dorset Council receiving £650,000.

This is another positive step in tackling domestic abuse and comes on the heels of new measures in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill which will give victims of domestic abuse longer to report offences to the police, so that abusers do not evade justice.

In the last week or so, I have travelled to Shaftesbury to meet with my opposite number in Wiltshire, PCC Phil Wilkinson and officers from our respective Forces to discuss cross border policing. We all know that criminals don’t see county borders when it comes to committing crime and so through closer collaborative working, we are able to tackle important shared concerns such as rural crime and county lines - it’s by working better together, we can take the fight to the criminals.

I also spent some time with the South West Fire Authority to discuss how best blue-light services across our county can work together and I met with Arts University Bournemouth to discuss student safety and the work the university does on community engagement, discussing how they deal with incidents of ASB.

This week saw me meet up with farmers across the south west of the county to discuss their concerns and how the Rural Crime Team are working with them to find solutions and I spent some very enjoyable time with the Wey Valley Police Cadets, watching a presentation they gave on their work.

On Thursday, I spent some time at Op Decker, Dorset Polices mobile phone road safety campaign run in partnership with Yellow Buses as part of national mobile phone enforcement week.

The operation saw a double decker bus travel around Bournemouth and Poole, with police officers on board detecting mobile phone/distraction offences. As part of the operation, there were patrols intercepting vehicles and dealing with the offences.  

Within the first hour, officers saw ten drivers using their mobile phones, two of which had no insurance.

If we are to reduce the number of traffic accidents on our roads, we must put our efforts into prevention and that’s exactly what Op Decker did – stopping people who were holding their mobile to have a conversation, stopping people who were texting, stopping people who were engaging with social media all whilst driving - all actions, that could have potentially fatal consequences.

 

David Sidwick

Police and Crime Commissioner

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