Village parking problems

I am aware from the many emails South Cambs officers receive and from Neighbourhood Panel meetings that parking is a constant concern for many residents in villages across South Cambridgeshire.

Many of you may know that I cannot prioritise parking patrols over investigating and preventing crime and responding to calls for service. In light of this, it means that my officers might not do as much parking enforcement as many of you would like.

I have been giving some thought on how we can meet your expectations on parking enforcement and I have decided that we are going to try something new. I have therefore set up an online web-page where you can report concerns about parking. The information that you give us will go directly to me and will help us build a picture of the exact hot-spots for parking issues. I will then use this information on targeted 'crack-down' days. There is some good evidence that crack-downs work in other areas of policing so we are going to try it for parking. For obvious reasons I will not be publicising the dates of the crackdowns in advance, but updates will be sent to you by e-cops, twitter and facebook once we have completed a crackdown day.

The web page is now live and you can find it here: http://tinyurl.com/SouthCambs-Parking

I am not pretending that this will solve all parking problems; however, I do think that it strikes the right balance between dealing with parking concerns and the other important work that we do.

Chief Inspector James Sutherland - Area Commander - South Cambs

Recent Media Coverage about Policing in Villages

Some of you may have seen recent media reporting regarding our policing of villages. I would like to emphasise that we do prioritise policing of the villages but what I do ask is that my officers prioritise the ‘hottest’ areas within our villages. This does mean that certain areas in some villages get more attention than those villages with very low crime. I believe this is a sensible approach to policing which most of you would agree with. The main benefit of our local policing structure is that you have your own, dedicated local resources that are responsible for policing South Cambs rather than the City.

I have sought to put as much time and effort as possible over the last three years into crime prevention events in the villages (first Op Oaklands and more recently Op Hunter). Your local officers and I work hard to give you the best, most intelligent policing service we can but if you do have any concerns please do get in touch - or come to our next round of neighbourhood panel meetings where you can join in the discussion.

Chief Inspector James Sutherland - Area Commander - South Cambs