News from your Community

On The Beat  - 

By: PCSO Sharon Chinn

PCSO Sharon Chinn

For those of you who have not yet met me, my name is Sharon Chinn and I am a PCSO (Police Community Support Officer) based at Launceston Police Station. I am part of the neighbourhood policing team, and I cover the rural areas of Launceston, which consists of 15 Parishes and 9 primary schools. I was previously a Traffic Warden for the Devon & Cornwall Constabulary, first stationed in Camborne and then more recently in Launceston, so many of you may recognise me. As part of my role as a PCSO I carry out high visibility foot patrol to deter crime and antisocial behaviour, provide public reassurance, and resolve community problems by working with partner agencies and communities using PACT (Partners And Communities Together). I am also engaging with particular key people in my villages, known as KIN contacts (Key Individual Network) to try and understand and address their local concerns. There are currently two post boxes with PACT postcards for community issues to be submitted to us, they are located at Altarnun P.O. and South Petherwin P.O. but we will be moving them around to cover all our villages in time. We also hold a PACT surgery at Altarnun village hall on the first Friday of each month where you can come and have a coffee and a chat with us, thanks to the Altarnun Chapel coffee mornings. I have tried to attend as many of my Parish Council meetings as possible, but if I have missed some I do apologise and please do contact me if you’d like me to attend. Most of the issues raised have been focused around my two local neighbourhood priorities: Reduction of speeding motorists through speed restricted villages, and particularly targeting areas outside primary schools. Public reassurance of hard to reach groups in outlying parishes where there is a low crime and low/high fear of crime. I have been engaging with all my primary schools with social visits and reassurance patrols at crucial times. I have also qualified as a Cyclewise instructor and have already successfully run 2 courses, firstly at Tregadillett Primary School and recently at Lewannick Primary school. This provides a fantastic opportunity for me to engage with the young children and teach them some road safety doing something they all enjoy. To identify the speeding issues within the villages the rural schools have had opportunities to be involved in doing a school speedwatch. So far, this has been achieved at Egloskerry, Coads Green, Tregadillett and Lewannick. The main objective was to educate drivers who were passing through the village above the speed limit. The pupils were split into two groups, one group assisted in the operation of the speed detection devices and radios whilst the other group engaged with any ‘offending’ drivers asking questions like Why are you speeding past my school? How would you feel if you knocked me or one of my friends over? And, Will you speed past my school again? In all cases the drivers of the vehicles commented that having to answer questions face to face with the school children was much harder to deal with than being issued a fixed penalty ticket by a police officer. They also felt that it would have a more lasting positive effect on their future attitude to driving through speed restricted areas especially outside schools. I am now looking to continue with community speedwatch involving members of the community and parish councils as well as the primary schools, anyone interested please make contact with myself. There has also been a need for Neighbourhood Watch schemes to be set up or re-vamped in my area, and I have recently helped to set up new ones in Canworthy Water and Polyphant. This is a great way of bringing the community together, looking out for your neighbours, being kept informed of what’s going on in your area and to add extra deterrent to keeping your property safe. Please feel free to approach me at anytime and introduce yourself whilst I’m patrolling your community. If there are any issues or problems please let me know, if I don’t know about them I can’t do anything about them! I will try and visit my parishes and villages as often as possible, but please bear with me; it’s a huge area. You can contact me on (01566) 771419, at Launceston Police Station or email sharon.chinn@devonandcornwall.pnn.police.uk. However, can I take this opportunity to remind everyone that dial 999 in an emergency, or the number for non-emergencies and reporting a crime is 08452 777 444.