A reasonable turnout for the meeting, significantly more than the last time.

In addition to the police, the council was represented by Councillor Ileyne Hutchinson.

Unfortunately the fire service was unable to attend due to more urgent business, and the youth service was unavailable although they did visit the Croft C.A.M.

The police announced that they would be changing the period between meetings to 12 weeks and would also be releasing a new questionnaire shortly to see if there is a required change to the priorities for Culcheth. This will either be a postal questionnaire, or a street survey, but has yet to be decided.

From the last meeting, the priority was Nuisance Youths.

What’s been done since last time?

Areas patrolled

A number of ABCs issued

Special off road unit set up to deal with trail bikes/mini motos

16 Nuisance Youth incidents

From the identified trouble spots from last time, the Linear Park had 1 reported incident, the centre of the village had 4 reported incidents, and Shaw Street / Warrington Road had 2 reported incidents. Overall there were 16 in the village since 10th May.

The ABC system was explained again. This is an Acceptable Behaviour Contract which is a voluntary contract that nuisance youths that get into trouble are given the opportunity to sign. This is an agreement to behave. The police hold a meeting with the youth and their parents to try and establish why they are getting into trouble, and help them if possible. By signing the contract and then breaching the agreement by continuing to be a nuisance, the matter is taken to a committee who decide on whether to issue an ASBO.

The off road unit has been set up in the Warrington area and is a 2 officer team on off road motorbikes to deal with the trail bikes and mini motos, particularly for off road terrain. The officers have powers to confiscate vehicles if necessary.

There was also a successful drugs raid in Culcheth which resulted from tip offs from local residents. This is much appreciated, and anybody with similar information is urged to contact Crimestoppers. You will not be asked to leave your name.

2 young adults have been arrested and charged with drink driving. 1 has been banned and the other is due in court shortly.

Steve Dodd, CSO, was pleased with the performance over Nuisance Youths. By comparing March 2005 (77 Nuisance Youth incidents) to June 2006 (8 N Y incidents), there has been a 90% drop in the number of incidents.

The citizenship lessons have been continuing at Culcheth High School, and are still being received positively by the kids.

Pubwatch: 1 male has been banned for fighting since the last meeting, and the landlords have noticed a decrease in the amount of trouble they receive.

Offwatch: This is coming along but requires more commitment, as there has been a lack of attendance at the meetings. However, this is hoped to improve over the next few meetings.

Homewatch: This has been resurrected successfully, and the information transfers are working successfully. If you want to be a part of it, contact the CSO.

Speedwatch: This has been successful in Croft and the hope is that this can be developed in Culcheth. Residents get training into clocking speeding cars, and once logged, the offender receives a warning letter in the post. The effect has been that the very presence of the speed gun slows people down. Again, if you want to be a part of it, contact the CSO for more information.

People with concerns about being identified, and potentially threatened, should not worry. Previous experience has shown that this in not a problem. The commitment required can also be as little as 1 hr every couple of weeks, and training will be provided, and a safe position given to patrol.

Youth Club: The Mee Brow youth club has been doing very well recently but needs more helpers. Volunteers to help would be much appreciated.

Councillor Ileyne Hutchinson was filling in for Keith Bland to report for the council.

Following on from the previous meeting, more details have been obtained about Culcheth’s very own CSO. Government policy says that if the council puts £11,000 towards it, the government will make up the difference, and Culcheth can have its own CSO.

A member of the police stepped forward to try and clarify the situation further:

At the moment, the current CSO is under the Warrington Police banner, and if they feel it necessary, they could potentially move him away to another community, unless we pay to make the CSO our own. The community would have a greater degree of control over his service.

Councillor Hutchinson continued.

The funds are available to make the CSO our own, and this would not mean a rise in the rates.

The decision will be made by a public ballot, although it is hoped that people will have noticed the improvements that the current CSO has made, and therefore still require his services.

Steve Dodd (CSO) has recently been working with youngsters to create sporting competition, with a recent Rugby competition, and a football competition planned for September between primary schools.

Voting then took place for the priority issue. 4 votes were allocated to each person. Results were as follows:

Speeding: 30

Nuisance Youths: 29

Parking: 21

Drugs: 16

Burglary: 13

Graffiti: 8

Dog Fouling: 5

The priority issue was Speeding. As always, it was reiterated that just because the other issues were not found to be the top priority, that they would be ignored. This would not be the case and all areas would still be covered.

Where And When? 3 votes each for this. Results as follows:

Common Lane; week days; am/pm at rush hour

Warrington Rd, Glazebury; week days; 7pm onwards

Wigshaw Lane; week days; 7am onwards

Questions were asked by the public as to why we can’t have some more physical deterrants such as the speed humps on Warrington Road. The police explained the difficulty in getting agreements for funding as this all requires a report with average speed examples.

The police will be trying to book the electronic display unit trailer that shows a drivers speed to come round at the times identified to reduce the speeding. Although this doesn’t record vehicles registrations, people being able to see their speed in big numbers normally slows them down.

Another point put to police was that maybe speeding was a bit too specific, and maybe traffic offences in general was more of a concern, such as in addition to speeding, drink driving, double parking and driving using a mobile phone.

The police were keen to continue with the more specific point, as a point of reference to show their improvements, but did point out that they would still be looking at other traffic offences when dealing with speeding.

The meeting closed with a reminder about the Community Speedwatch to try and encourage more volunteers.