Weekly force update

Hello Resident, I hope you are doing well. It’s your local PCSO, PCSO Priest here with the weekly force update.

We would like to update you on what we have been doing in the Bartley Green area this week:

 It was great to see people come to the Bartley Green Police And Communities Together Meeting at St Francis centre, and it was great to listen to any concerns ad enquires from residents attending the meeting. We also spoke about what we have done since the last PACT Meeting to tackle the issues what was raised to us back then and what we still plan on doing to keep tackling these issues. 

I must also mention that on behalf of the Bartley Green Neighbourhood team, we appreciate the time and effort what residents took to get to the meeting despite the cold and the rain, as we appreciate that you care for your community and want the best for it and coming to these meetings is a great way to raise any concerns to us and ask any questions you may have for us. 

So, to keep it short and sweet, the Bartley Green Neighbourhood Team sends it regards and appreciation, as well as a massive thank you.

Since the last WMNOW message, we have received two reports of residential homes being broken into. We advise you the following suggestions as it can limit and reduce the chance of your home being the next target to be broken into. We firstly advise to install CCTV or ring doorbell cameras, as it can put people off from attempting to gain entry, and if it was the case where people do attempt to break into your home, then the cameras will provide good CCTV footage for the police helping to potentially get a positive outcome. We advise that all your doors and windows are locked, as a lot of people will try the doors and windows to see if they are unlocked, before then moving on to the next home. We do also advise that your doors have an anti-snap lock mechanism what makes it harder to gain entry.

Since the last WMNOW message, we have had two reports of vehicles being broken into with items being stolen from within. We advise you to follow the following. Please take out anything of value such as watch, phone, bag/handbag etc. As people going past your car would look in, see something of value, and break into the vehicle to steal it. We also advise you to take out any carriers/plastic bags even if they are empty, as again when people walk past they will see the plastic/carrier bag inside the vehicle and may think there could be something in there to take.

We regularly deal with drivers who decide to park up wherever they please, what can then cause issues within the area what can block homeowners from entering or leaving their home, or can cause residents to have to walk in the middle of the road due to how cars have blocked the pavement. We work with multiple members of the community, and we try and tackle these issues together through multiple different avenues. But we are not always present to tackle them. But we do have a solution what can benefit everyone and get you more involved in tackling the issues yourselves. In the link below this paragraph, it will take you to our West Midlands Police page where you can report vehicles what park dangerously, are abandoned, park on your driveway or blocking your driveway etc. Each option will have a clickable link next to it where you can put in the necessary information through a list of questions. Once it is all filled in, it will be sent to a specialist team for review so they can deal with the issue reported to us.

Parking issues and abandoned vehicles | West Midlands Police

Birmingham City Council also have a website similar to ours, what allows you to report vehicles causing an obstruction. 

We do advise you to use ours, but if it is ever the case where our website is down then please use this link below as a second resort to reporting the issue you see and face.

Report an illegally parked vehicle | Birmingham City Council

We still encourage residents to register their home/business CCTV and doorbell cameras, as this helps us solve crimes by providing us the appropriate footage what captures the crime in question. This not only helps us solves crimes, but it also helps to keep your community safer. 

You can use the link below, what takes you to our web page where you can register your CCTV cameras by putting in your details. This helps officers be able to get in contact with you if they believe your CCTV camera has potential digital footage of a crime being committed, as they can see the local area where crime has took place, and see your CCTV camera present in that area. This will help officers in dealing with crimes more quickly and swiftly, what will then allow them to do more jobs, helping to make the community a safer place.

CCTV Registry | West Midlands Police

As of this moment we are still currently at 1022 members who have signed up on wmnow for Bartley green. 

I believe in the saying ‘the more the merrier’, so if you know someone who may have an interest in joining, then please share them this link below. This will take them to the wmnow websites homepage, where they can create an account by clicking the sign-up button, and then put in the necessary information. Once everything is done and the account is created, they can then receive force update messages from their local Neighbour team. This helps to bring a community together and gives us the chance to receive information and intelligence about anything going on in the area.

Home Page - WMnow

We are still experiencing an increase of demand from across the area over the last few weeks, with more people calling and asking for help. Our staff are working extremely hard to answer and respond to your calls and live chats. But due to the high demand it can cause callers to have to wait longer than they should, what if something neither of us want at all. We prioritize your enquires/calls based on how urgent they are, but we always appreciate that you want help as soon as possible.

In Non-emergencies circumstances, we want you to get in contact with us through the live web chat, or the Non-emergency telephone 101.

If your circumstances are emergencies, then please call 999.

We are still looking to recruit for the Street watch initiative. For further information please visit the WMP website for details. 

You can use the link below what will take you to our page where the necessary steps to register your interest in the street watch programme, can be made.

Street Watch | West Midlands Police

Bartley Green Neighbourhood Team.