News

Blitz Soham Sweep in bid to cut Crime

Officers from East Cambridgeshire District Council’s environmental services department joined forces last week with the Police, Fire Service and other agencies to conduct a blitz sweep through Soham aimed at identifying and removing potential crime blackspots.
The joint multi-agency operation entitled Environmental Action Day was designed to help reduce crime, vandalism and anti-social behaviour in the town by dealing with any factors found on the streets which could encourage crime or anti-social behaviour.
During the day-long environmental blitz abandoned cars were removed, fly-tipped rubbish taken away, and potential crime blackspots identified, such as badly lit areas or where trees and hedges had become overgrown and had become possible problem spots for theft, mugging or vandalism.
East Cambridgeshire County Council environmental health officer Julia Atkins said: “We did a similar and very successful joint operation in Littleport earlier this year, and our anti-vandalism and counter crime blitz on Soham on Wednesday 1st September 2004 was equally successful.
“As in Littleport, we didn’t manage to sort out all the potential problems we identified that same day, but we will be going back again later with our partner agencies to make sure that what was spotted as potentially being liable to foster crime, such as graffiti, houses in poor repair or which make it easy for burglars, or bushes and trees overgrown on paths, will all be sorted out.
“The success of these two operations almost certainly means we will be repeating these blitz ‘clean sweep’ initiatives elsewhere across the district in the future. Taking early preventative measures does contribute to greater public safety, helps reduce crime, and improves people’s quality of life.”
Other agencies taking part in the joint operation included Hereward Housing, Soham Town Council, and the County Council’s Highways Agency and Trading Standards department.
Senior Fire Officer John Neish, who spent the day on Soham’s streets as part of the action team, said: “The high visibility presence of the multi-agency team on the streets during such action days does help focus people’s mind on the issue of crime prevention. During the course of the day we actually had a householder come out to tell us of a previously unreported crime. It has been a successful sweep.”
 

September 2004