Neighbourhood Inspector Elaine Burtenshaw

You may recall that in April Surrey Police underwent a major reorganisation. This included a slimming down of middle and upper management, more constable posts created and an estates strategy involving colocation of neighbourhood teams with District Councils. As regards the co-location I have no further update to give you at this stage but re-iterate there will be public consultation regarding the location of your neighbourhood officers. But I have good news regarding the additional staff. PC Hayley Reed has commenced her role as Youth Intervention Officer and four additional police constables have just started, forming the neighbourhood support team. They will be working alongside your neighbourhood officers targeting individuals who are up to no good within the community and crime problems. This last month we have run three Operation Smart vehicle stop points organised by neighbourhood officer PC Bassom with colleagues from Roads Policing Unit and VOSA. A summary total is 185 vehicles stopped; 68 tickets processed for no seatbelt, mobile phones etc; 29 illegal vehicles taken off the road; five arrests for various offences and 21 stop and search of vehicles.

This I am sure you will agree is excellent pro-active work capturing those that break traffic laws that could directly affect you. I am aware that there is concern around dogs and cases where they have been involved with assaults on people and other animals. You will have read in the local press of cases that your local neighbourhood team have taken to court. The owners were prosecuted, strict control put on the dogs and in some cases dogs were removed by the courts. In an incident at the end of August a dog owner was arrested by officers from the Neighbourhood Team and subsequently charged under the Dangerous Dogs Act for failing to comply with a Court order. The charge related to two separate incidents. Two Rottweilers and a Staffordshire Bull Terrier are currently in the custody of the police.