Have your say on crime and community safety

They are being invited to attend the Safer Hartlepool Partnership’s Face the Public event which is to be held at Hartlepool Civic Centre on Monday 26th February from 3.30-6pm.

A workshop is to be held which will enable residents to highlight the issues which most affect them.

The event will also see the official launch of the new Hartlepool Community Safety Team, an initiative that has brought together staff from Hartlepool Borough Council, Cleveland Police and Cleveland Fire Brigade under one roof at Hartlepool Police Station in Avenue Road.

The aim of the team is to improve information sharing and ensure that residents benefit from a joined-up approach to tackling community safety issues.”

A short film outlining the role of the team will be screened at the event.

Councillor Christopher Akers-Belcher, Chair of the Partnership and Leader of Hartlepool Borough Council, said: “We hope that people will come along to the Face the Public event and help us to plan for the year ahead by raising the issues that directly impact on their day-to-day lives.

“We are committed to listening to local people and responding to their concerns wherever possible. The new Hartlepool Community Safety Team is a perfect example of that. People often tell me that they don’t always know where to go to report issues and the new team is a direct response to their concerns.”

The Face the Public event is also an opportunity for people to put questions to senior representatives of key organisations making up the Safer Hartlepool Partnership, including Cleveland Police, Hartlepool Borough Council, Cleveland Fire Brigade, the Hartlepool and Stockton-on-Tess Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), the Probation Service and the Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner.

Anyone who plans to attend the event is asked to confirm this with Hartlepool Borough Council’s Community Safety and Engagement Team by Thursday February 22. The team can be contacted on (01429) 523100 or community.safety@hartlepool.gov.uk

Immediately following the Hartlepool Civic Centre event, Councillor Akers-Belcher will be joining Safer Hartlepool Partnership colleagues in hosting an online web chat. Residents can post their questions to @HpoolCouncil on Twitter and should include #SaferHpool at the end of their Tweet. Alternatively, they can “like” the Hartlepool Council Facebook page – which can be found at www.facebook.com/hartlepoolcouncil - and send their questions via a message to the page.

The full event timetable is as follows:

3.30pm: Registration, tea and coffee

4.00pm: Welcome, introduction and overview of Safer Hartlepool Partnership (SHP) activity

4.20pm: Hartlepool Community Safety Team (short film)

4.30pm: Workshop – future SHP priorities

5.10pm: Public question time

5.50pm: Closing remarks

6.00pm: Event close

6.05pm: Web chat (until 7pm)

Anyone who is unable to attend the event can still comment on community safety issues that concern them by completing an online survey. The survey which should take only around five minutes to complete, can be accessed at https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/HBC2018_Safer_Hartlepool_Survey2018 until Friday 2nd March.