North Kesteven policing plan

Working together to make the district of North Kesteven the safest place to live, work and visit.

North Kesteven is characterised by picturesque countryside, charming villages and historic market towns.

The district offers a mix of agricultural activities, with fields stretching across the countryside, as well as some light industry and commerce, particularly in towns like Sleaford and North Hykeham. The Royal Air Force has a significant operational presence in the district with RAF College Cranwell in the south and RAF Waddington in the north, home to The Red Arrows who are a regular feature in the skies of Lincolnshire.

Life here tends to be tranquil and slower-paced compared to neighbouring districts in the county.

North Kesteven is one of the safest places to live in terms of lowest recorded crimes per head of population. Of the seven Lincolnshire districts, it has the lowest crime rate overall.

The low crime rates go hand in hand with the area being in the top 15% of the least deprived local authority areas in England, and the least deprived district in Lincolnshire.

Teams of officers cover calls for service 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Our Neighbourhood Policing Officers are split between North Hykeham and Sleaford police stations with five community beat officers and two PCSOs led by a neighbourhood policing inspector and two sergeants.

Our work relies upon the close support of several other teams including investigators responsible for volume crime, serious crime and crimes against children and vulnerable people as well as dedicated intelligence officers.

We also draw on support from countywide teams such as armed response officers, dog handlers, traffic officers and economic crime investigators. The neighbourhood policing team has strong links with all sorts of organisations and other agencies, forming local partnerships. We work daily with these partners to deal effectively with crime and disorder issues. It’s our job to identify the issues that are affecting the quality of life of those that live and work here, and to solve these issues both with early effective impact, and in some cases, working to resolve longer-term problems.

Whilst North Kesteven is a very safe place to live and visit, there are ongoing issues, and it is our job to identify quickly the issues representing the most significant harm and get to work on them. Each day, our focus will always be simply to keep people safe.

Sometimes, that will mean signposting callers to other forms of support for low-level nuisance, but by doing that, we can ensure our teams are tackling the detrimental issues based on an informed assessment of what poses the greatest threat, risk or harm.

There will also be a focus on being accessible to the public both in person and digitally. I want to make sure we work hard to capture the views, worries and concerns of as broad a cross section of our communities as possible - and that means giving a voice to demographic groups whose opinions we haven’t historically been good at capturing.

Download the full North Kesteven policing plan below.

Inspector Rachel Blackwell
Neighbourhood Policing – North Kesteven