Plan for Violent Crime Prevention Centre unveiled
Shaun Sawyer and Alison Hernandez want to invest £1m to tackle the violence that they say blights lives and has widespread repercussions for society.
The centre will be established in partnership between the commissioner and Devon and Cornwall Police. It will bring in experts from across social care and public health to get to the root cause of offending and intervene to prevent people from getting involved in violence.
The ‘supercops’ serving Devon communities
A total of £500,000 has been pledged by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) to pay for more ‘bluelight, multi-skilled officers’ after the success of the Community Responders pilot in Devon.
This adds £300,000 to the overall annual budget available to spend on ‘bluelight’ officers adding to the £200,000 that was already available.
After finishing their training, the country’s first community responders will be independently patrolling their communities across the county. The team of seven are retained firefighters that have been trained as special constables who can patrol with full police powers.
They will join Cornwall’s ten tri-service safety officers who are deployed in areas which may not have a full-time emergency service presence and are a collaboration between police, ambulance and fire and rescue services. The new officers will be known in the future as Emergency Service Collaboration Officers.
The joint initiative between the OPCC, Devon & Cornwall Police and the Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service places community responders in seven locations in Devon where there is an identified need based on risk, vulnerability and harm – Cullompton, Crediton, Totnes, Dartmouth, Honiton, Okehampton and Newton Abbot.
Each Community Responder has been provided with electric bicycles funded by the OPCC which means they can patrol a wider area and still be within five minutes of their home station.
Public gets first look at stunning new police stations
Invited guests from two Westcountry communities had the chance to tour Britain’s newest police stations at events in Liskeard and Exeter today.
A ‘first look’ event was held as Exeter’s new station was handed over by the police and crime commissioner to the chief constable, after the official opening of Liskeard Police Station in Cornwall.
Religious leaders, police volunteers and local residents were among those invited to tour the buildings.
PCC Alison Hernandez thanked those who had worked for many years to bring the projects to fruition, as well as members of the local communities for their support.
Commissioner confirms Devon and Cornwall Police’s 2020/21 budget following a meeting of the Police and Crime Panel (7 February)
It will see band D households in Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly pay an additional £9.36 on their precept – the tax raised locally to pay for policing. It will raise an additional £5.7m for Devon and Cornwall Police’s 2020/21 annual budget.
The budget makes an allowance for a Violent Crime Prevention Centre to be established to tackle the violence that the commissioner and chief constable say blights lives and has widespread repercussions for society.
The budget also makes available £500,000 for investment in greater collaboration with other emergency services, £150,000 for an innovation fund and £400,000 for improvements in the police estate.
Increases in relation to council tax bands are laid out in the table above.