News Date: Wednesday 21st September 2005
Tim chairs police meeting on vandalism in Southwick
Around 40 Southwick residents from Park Lane and Spinnals grove attended a public meeting at Shoreham College on Monday evening organised by Southwick Green councillor Robert Dunn to highlight recent problems of vandalism and anti-social behaviour in the area. This follows a string of incidents over the summer which included 29 cars having their tyres slashed and 2 cars set on fire.
Robert Dunn organised the meeting in response to frustration from local residents concerned that the police were not taking the problems seriously. He was joined by fellow ward councillor Julie Searle and County Councillor for the area Paul Graysmark and the meeting was chaired by Adur MP Tim Loughton. The meeting listened to a presentation from Sergeant Cheesman who was accompanied by 2 local police community support officers. Residents then raised concerns about the speed of police response to some of the incidents and asked for more patrols particularly on Friday and Saturday nights when most of the damage was being caused and was largely down to Park Lane being a main thoroughfare from the Green and Southwick stations to Shoreham.
The police promised to step up patrols by the community officers in the area and to help set up a resident's association which could disseminate information between residents and make sure that all incidents were properly reported. Under reporting of vandalism had led the police to under-estimate the scale of the problem and this must be addressed. The ward councillors offered to be part of this as well and together with Tim Loughton agreed to monitor the situation and re-convene a further meeting at the College later in the year to see if progress had been made.
ENDS
Note to Editor:
1) The meeting was held on Monday 19th September at Shoreham College.
Tim Loughton MP , 2005
