Newton Aycliffe NPT Sergeant Mark Edwards continues his weekly blog on Aycliffe Today…
It’s the end of yet another hectic week in Newton Aycliffe – the time just seems to whizz by.
As many of you may know there was a multi-agency training exercise held on Wednesday morning involving INEOS on the Industrial Estate.
This played out in ‘real time’ and was designed as a way of looking at the response of the emergency services in the event of such an incident – amongst those agencies present working with INEOS personnel on site were the Police, the Fire Service, Ambulance Service, Environmental Agency, representatives of Durham Council Unit, and the Civil Contingencies Unit.
The exercise involved a fictitious gas leak and as a result, de-briefings were held and changes and/or tweaks to working practices were identified.
I want to again draw attention to the access points that the team hold at various venues across the town.
We are continuing to hold these and will be looking at identifying new venues to supplement those already used.
It is no secret that there have been concerns expressed since the old Police Station closed on Central Avenue and re-located to the Business Park.
No final decision has been made as whether there will be a new build closer to the town centre – this is a decision that is in the hands of the powers that be at executive level.
All I would request is that members of my team are not bombarded at their public forums with questions that they can’t answer (such as whether there will be a new building, are we moving back etc) – we are the Neighbourhood Officers working on the ground who have no say in these matters, our focus is in addressing those community issues the best that we can working with our partner agencies.
Other items of interest, now let’s see…
Three males were arrested during the early hours of Thursday morning on suspicion of a garage burglary in the Gunn Lane area of the town.
Lewis McCormick (19), Wayne Gray (23), and a 17-year-old male were subsequently charged with the offence and will be appearing at Magistrates Court.
A 24-year-old female from the Ferryhill area, Kirsty Hutchinson, was arrested and charged with several counts of shoplifting from premises in Aycliffe town centre. She will also be appearing at court very soon.
On a crime prevention note, at around this time last year we saw a spike in thefts of pedal cycles across the town.
Many of these involved bikes stolen from rear gardens or from outside of shops and other buildings where they had been left unsecured.
Could all owners of bikes be extra vigilant as we would hate to see a repeat of last year’s crime series – when going into shops for example, secure your bikes with chains/padlocks to fixtures, keep them locked in garages/sheds and don’t leave them unattended in front or rear gardens.
Keep your eyes open for details of bike marking events which the team will be organising at locations across the town over the coming weeks – essentially your bikes will be security marked and you will receive a certificate giving you a specific code which can be used by Police to identify your bike in the future event that it is stolen and recovered.
Details will be endorsed on our usual forums and by leaflet drops/press releases.
Take care and, be good!
Mark J. Edwards
Newton Aycliffe NPT Sergeant
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