The Social Side of Neighbourhood Policing Engagement

Chiltern & South Bucks Policing Issues Forum’s main brief is to facilitate community engagement with our Neighbourhood Policing teams. Hence we organise surveys and meetings of residents and senior Police officers in which crime issues and concerns can be discussed, and focus areas for Neighbourhood officers set. We also try to maintain a steady stream of information on the website and social media.

TVP raising its Social Media Game

Over the last couple of years, we have noticed how much our local Police has been raising its own communications game.

Our experience in running the Forum is that residents really appreciate the opportunity to communicate, and to understand what is being done on their behalf. Here are a number of opportunities, available to all residents:

Twitter

The TVP Rural Crime Taskforce Twitter account (@TVP_RuralCrime) was set up as recently as February 2022, charting the roll-out of the Police and Crime Commissioner’s objective of reducing rural crime.

The TVP Chiltern&S.Bucks account (@TVP_ChiltSBucks) was live since 2011, but it had been noticeable how much more active it has become in recent months. With the amalgamation of Chiltern & South Bucks and Wycombe local policing areas, new Twitter updates will appear on @tvp_southbucks

Facebook

TVP Chiltern and South Bucks Facebook page, formerly @TVPChilternandSouthBucks, has been replaced by @TVPSouthBuckinghamshire. All content previously posted on those two accounts can now be found on this page.

Thames Valley Alerts

Thames Valley Alerts allow community messages to be sent directly to residents’ inboxes. Any resident can sign up – please visit https://www.thamesvalleyalert.co.uk/. A free smart-phone Alert app has recently been added.

WhatsApp

Two community messaging groups have recently been set up on WhatsApp, one for Chiltern area, one for South Bucks. The purpose of the groups is not as a crime reporting tool, but to share information about suspicious incidents to make both the community and Police aware, and to help Police in improved targetting of patrols. To join the Chiltern group, please e-mail Nicole Johnson at clerk@pennparish.org.uk

The Written Word

Neighbourhood Policing teams produce informative quarterly reports, written by the team Sergeants. These lead with reports on activity to deliver on focus areas set by the community. At our latest Forum meeting, Inspector James Ellis, now in charge of the Neighbourhood teams across Chiltern and South Bucks, committed to delivery of high quality quarterly policing updates, distributed as widely as possible.

All the latest quarterly reports, and past issues, can be accessed from a drop-down list on the Home page of the Forum web site. In the same place, there are lists for Community Speedwatch newsletters, published by Community Speedwatch Co-ordinator PC Lee Turnham, and for TVP Rural Crime updates.

Now that we have emerged from lockdowns, ‘Have Your Say’ sessions with local PCSOs are available again. Details are published on TVP social media channels, on the Forum’s website and elsewhere.

But…

One important qualification to all the above: PLEASE DO NOT USE SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS TO REPORT CRIME. Please use the appropriate channels – 999, 101, 101 online.