“Hello everyone. Here’s the latest Boston Neighbourhood Policing Team quarterly newsletter. By now you will have all welcomed in the New Year and I hope you are looking forward to a peaceful and productive 2025. Let’s get to it…
“The last three months of 2024 were incredibly busy, and my officers have been working hard to not only deliver against the priorities we know matter in this area, but to also support colleagues in other areas such as Response.
“In December we worked with our partners in Boston Borough Council CCTV, Community Rangers, Kingdom Enforcement, Pescod Security Team, and others on Operation Continents, which is our dedicated operation to tackle prolific shoplifters. The operation saw five arrests, clearing over 50 offences. Repeat offenders are prosecuted and a Community Behaviour Order sought. We will continue to pursue these repeat offenders and hope the courts support us in providing some respite for retailers in the town with appropriate, significant sentences.
“This period we have welcomed an initiative that has helped us to increase our visibility in the town centre area with targeted foot-patrols. The officers who have taken part in these Home Office-funded patrols have loved it; engaging with the public, retailers and partners on foot is what we joined to do. These patrols have resulted in more than 20 arrests, numerous stop searches, and a reduction in ASB in the town centre.
“Our operation to disrupt illegal businesses, Operation Nivada, continues with further closure orders completed and more planned. Our strong partnership work with Trading Standards Lincolnshire and Home Office Immigration will continue.
“We will soon be publishing our Policing Plan 2025 for Boston. You’ll see lots of the operations that the NPT are involved in, all of which contribute to our vision of “Making Lincolnshire the Safest Place to Live, Work and Visit”. This will be published online as a digital version, and we’ll be sharing the links for that soon. If you would like a hard copy, please email me at ian.cotton@lincs.police.uk and I’ll get one sent out to you. If you have any questions about any of the operations or activities detailed feel free to get in touch. If there’s anything you feel we should be doing in 2025 that wasn’t on last year’s plan, please let me know.
“The final piece of news I’d like to share is about South Holland. As we navigate the challenges we are facing in force with funding constraints in the coming years, we’re aware of the importance that local policing has and how it is at the heart of our communities, and the area’s current Inspector Matt Dickinson will be focussing specifically on this work in the coming months. I will take the reins in South Holland supported by the existing excellent local team, alongside leading the local team here in Boston.”
The priorities for your area – January to March
- Tacking ASB in Red Lion Street
- Tackling drug dealing in the Riverside to Tattershall Road areas
- Youth engagement
Our priorities have been set based on feedback from our communities, as well as our own understanding of the issues affecting local neighbourhoods. Everything that is raised by the community will be considered and added to patrol plans or examined by your neighbourhood team; some areas of concern will already be being worked on by the local team in conjunction with other policing departments and partners.
You might not have personally seen an issue with some of the areas we’re tackling, and may wonder why we’ve put our focus there, and it’s a good question to ask. It’s because we know there are issues or areas that need our attention, either due to the number of offences, emerging trends, or other intelligence. The priorities are until the end of March. The next priority setting meeting will be held at the beginning of April, on a date TBC.
Find out more about your local area here: https://www.lincs.police.uk/area/your- area/lincolnshire/boston/
Actions taken on previous priorities
Boston Town Centre and Town East
- Tackling ASB
Update:
We have been tackling key issues of street drinking and homelessness with our partners in Boston Borough Council, the Rough Sleeping Team and the Community Rangers. There have been 307 extra dedicated patrol hours with 16 arrests for offences such and possession of a controlled substance with intent to supply, and drunk and disorderly. We have used ASB legislations and processes to deal with youths entering abandoned buildings. ASB has fallen in the last three months in the town centre. You would expect this with the seasonal fluctuations we see in ASB, but anticipate that some of the reduction is down to the hard work of the team.
West Street, Boston
- Tackling violence against women and girls
Update: We have focussed our activity on issuers and concerns we know feed in to a bigger picture of violence against women and girls. The local team have hosted several events in West Street, Boston, and we have worked closely with Klaudia Janikowska, Community Engagement Officer for Boston Borough Council.
We have promoted the use of the Street Safe scheme where members of the public can raise concerns about environmental factors in the area such as lack of lighting or CCTV, as well as report issues with ASB or intimidation.
We have worked closely with the council’s homeless team to find alternative accommodation or move people from the West Street area. Our hot-spot patrols have yielded some excellent proactive arrests for offences including drug dealing, possession, drunk and disorderly behaviour, and public order offences.
We have also identified work which will be completed around the educational piece around British values and acceptable behaviour. This is a longer term piece of work.
This will now form longer-term partnership work around values and environment, rather than a specific priority.
All areas
- Tackling vehicle nuisance
Update: Key ASB vehicle locations have been identified and target hardened. The response has been led by PC Jon Thornton. Engagement with those gathering to show off their cars has resulted in changes of behaviour. We have had assistance of the Special Constables from Lincoln who have completed engagement patrols and issues tickets for offences. There have been targeted patrols by the NPT as a team. We have not seen the repeat problems we saw in the autumn. We know there are still some issues with speeding but we have not had the same high number of vehicle nuisance reports.
You can view the full newsletter from Inspector Ian Cotton here – https://sway.cloud.microsoft/k4j6DAg7srYfbgaQ?ref=Link&loc=mysways
