New Hartlepool Community Safety Team to be launched

The integrated Hartlepool Community Safety Team will involve staff from Hartlepool Council, Cleveland Police and Cleveland Fire Brigade being based together at Hartlepool Police Station.

The aim is to improve information sharing and ensure that Hartlepool communities benefit from a joined-up approach to tackling community safety issues, with a particular focus on prevention.

The team is due to be officially launched in February next year.

Councillor Christopher Akers-Belcher, the Leader of Hartlepool Council and Chair of the Safer Hartlepool Partnership, said: “The creation of a single team in this way aims to ensure that members of the public are not passed from one organisation to another when trying to get issues resolved.

“We will also aim to ensure that appropriate staff are in the right place at the right time when needed through an improved community intelligence-based approach.”

The team will focus on the Safer Hartlepool Partnership’s 2017-2020 Community Safety Plan and play an important role in ensuring that key priorities within it are tackled effectively.

Members of the team will be particularly visible in the community, and it is intended that they will be present at the Council’s Community Hubs in north, south and centre of the town on at least one day a week where drop-ins, crime prevention days and other activities will take place.

The team and its new integrated model of working were approved recently by Hartlepool Council’s Finance and Policy Committee.

Councillor Akers-Belcher added: “The new team will have clear benefits for local communities and it also fits well with the Council’s new three-year Council Plan, one of the key priorities of which is to develop new services for people and communities.”