Recognising neighbourhood teams' vital role in building trust and legitimacy

Last week, we joined police forces across England and Wales to mark Neighbourhood Policing Week.

The officers and PCSOs who work in our neighbourhood teams have some of the most important roles in policing.

They are often the first point of contact with our communities and as such, are central to helping us build trust and legitimacy.

Neighbourhood teams tackle many of the issues that matter most to those who live, work or visit our county, such as anti-social behaviour, street-level drug dealing and shoplifting.

And thanks to the strong relationships neighbourhood officers and PCSOs have with their communities, they are able to gather crucial intelligence to help prevent offences from being committed and to solve them when they have.

They also play a key role in protecting vulnerable people by collaborating with partners in the health service, in local government and in other agencies.

Here are just some examples of the activities our neighbourhood teams have been involved in recently:

• The arrest of man suspected of dealing drugs in a skate park in Gloucester
• A plain clothed operation in Walton Cardiff targeting drug dealing
• Multiple searches carried out for vulnerable missing people across the county, including a six-year-old child in Gloucester who was ultimately found safe and well
• The arrest of two people in the Forest of Dean for drugs offences and the seizure of £500 of cocaine
• The charging of a woman from Tewkesbury in connection with 25 shoplifting incidents
• A proactive operation in Gloucester which saw two people arrested and 24 E-bikes and scooters seized
• The charging of two men with multiple burglary offences in both the Forest of Dean and Cheltenham areas

Neighbourhood teams have also supported some of our partner agencies with enforcement action. They have helped:

• Trading Standards as it seized around £13,000 of suspected counterfeit clothing and also as it visited vape shops
• Border Force as it arrested eight people for immigration offences at a construction site

Senior officers also hosted a conference for neighbourhood officers and PCSOs which included sessions on the independent charity Crimestoppers; protecting vulnerable people from being exploited by extremists through the Home Office’s Prevent programme, and the Your Community Alert scheme.

Chief Superintendent Rebecca Love, Head of Local Policing, said: “Our Neighbourhood Policing Teams are typically made up of officers and PCSOs who are from the communities they serve.

“They care deeply about keeping their communities safe and work hard day in day out to prevent crimes and resolve the types of disputes and tensions that all communities experience.

“Being a neighbourhood officer or PCSO requires skill and knowledge as they will regularly manage a large variety of issues and incidents, some of which can be quite complex.

“Last year, we invested in additional neighbourhood police officers across the county, in both urban and rural areas while every one of our communities now have a named contactable neighbourhood policing officer which they can look up on our website.

“We are proud of our Neighbourhood Policing Teams and are pleased Neighbourhood Policing Week gives us the opportunity to shine a spotlight on their invaluable contribution to policing in Gloucestershire.”