South Holland policing plan (HTML)

This is a plain text, HTML version of the South Holland policing plan. You can download the PDF version of the plan at the bottom of this page.

Foreword

Working together to make the district of South Holland the safest place to live, work and visit.

The district of South Holland has a wealth of diverse communities. It borders the counties of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and district of South Kesteven and Borough of Boston in Lincolnshire. It is made up of the busy market towns of Spalding, Holbeach, Long Sutton and Crowland as well as numerous rural parishes each with their own unique settings and communities. Within the district there is also the Port of Sutton Bridge and RAF Holbeach Bombing range.

Spalding has the yearly pumpkin festival organised by South Holland District Council. There is also the Flower Parade which on the back of its relaunch in 2023 has seen a sizeable interest both locally and nationally, drawing in a substantial quantity of visitors over the duration of the event. Both bring in a welcome boost to the local economy. The event now sits as one of the largest in the county. There is also a diverse population within the district which supports the large manufacturing and agricultural industries that operate alongside local independent businesses.

The main arterial roads - the A16, A17 and A52 - run through South Holland resulting in significant vehicle traffic and roads policing issues alongside policing the many smaller, rural country and residential roads.

With such a wide variety of communities, all of which have their own unique needs, we must be aware of how this impacts the demands on service both within policing and our partners. This plan will allow a focus of going back to basics and prioritising our resources to tackle the issues that really matter to the local community alongside those evidence based needs identified by police and partners. The examination of police data alongside continued engagement with the public and partners will allow an understanding and focus on when/where crime and anti-social behaviour takes place. Partnership work will robustly tackle this, focusing on areas that are identified to have higher levels of harm, vulnerability and the greatest need.

All the work within the plan will be carried out not only by your dedicated community teams but also by others from response policing and also specialist support teams such as and not limited to the Roads Policing Unit and the Rural Crime Action Team, all of which have a positive effect on keeping our communities safe and denying those who would commit crime or act antisocially the ability to have that negative impact.

Our officers and partners work hard to police South Holland and I see every day how they leave a positive impact on the communities they operate within. This plan will allow us to continue to build on this good work. It allows a focus on what matters the most to the communities in South Holland. It provides a focus on plans to continue to work together and make South Holland the safest possible district for people to live, work and visit. I am confident that working together, in partnership, we can achieve this.

Inspector Matt Dickinson
Neighbourhood Policing – South Holland

Our vision

Working together to make the county the safest place to live, work and visit.

Our strategy

In line with the force priorities there are three areas that underpin our neighbourhood policing plan 2024.

Stop crime and ASB

We will do our utmost to prevent harm before it happens and lessen the impact when it does.

Protect people from harm

We will work with the community to deliver a series of initiatives to make them feel safe and protect them from harm.

Help those in need

We will work with our partners to identify the most vulnerable in our community, offering a high standard of care. Ensuring we have the right resources in the right place at the right time.

How we will deliver this

We will engage

We will be in the right place at the right time, in the heart of our communities.

We will listen

We will listen to the views of all our communities, setting community priorities across the district in consultation with you dealing with the things that really matter in your area.

We will inform

We will communicate using face-to-face engagements and across a number of online platforms.

We will work together

We will seek out opportunities to work with our partners and offer community participation policing initiatives.

Stop crime and ASB

We will do our utmost to prevent harm before it happens and lessen the impact when it does.

School engagement

We will foster close working relationships with primary and secondary schools/ education settings within the district. In doing so we will seek to educate in partnership with Lincolnshire Police’s youth engagement officers and the crime prevent team to safeguard those who are the next generation. We will continue to contribute in delivering the Mini Police programme in areas identified to have the highest risk and work with established partnerships in settings such as MACE (Multi Agency Child Exploitation) to prevent harm to those who are subject to, at risk of coercion and exploitation.

Anti-social behaviour

We will focus resources on tackling anti-social behaviour in the wider district but also the town centre localities. In partnership with South Holland District Council we will focus resources on supporting those who are vulnerable due to social, economic circumstances as well at those who have addictions. In partnership we will seek to get those who need support signposted and deal robustly with those who choose not to engage and then cause a negative impact on the lives of others though acting in an anti-social manner. 

Operation Galileo

This operation focuses on the enforcement and prevention of rural crime involving trespassing on private land and pursuit of animals in what is a cruel and brutal manner. The impact of this is not simply the behaviours of those who seek to profit from illegal activities but also the wider consequences of damage to farmland and intimidation aimed towards those hard-working farming communities whose livelihoods are impacted by this. We will continue to work towards disrupting this activity with the Rural Crime Action Team (RCAT). We will support the RCAT to disrupt and target coursing and build the intelligence picture behind those who seek to continue their offending behaviour.

Protect from harm

We will work with the community to deliver a series of initiatives to make them feel safe and protect them from harm.

Road safety/Fatal 5

Throughout the year resources will work alongside specialist officers (such as the Roads Policing Unit) and with partners such as the Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership to make our roads safer, tackling the areas that fall under the fatal five, alongside other antisocial behaviour on our roads. Local policing teams will complement responses to force wide operations on a local level such as the targeting of drink- and drug-drivers on our roads. We will seek to evidence base this response requesting where appropriate speed surveys to obtain data that will allow officers to focus their time where most needed. Local Community Speed Watch will be promoted to encourage the public to become involved in prevention and partners will be consulted and the public signposted where other agencies can best offer solutions to create and implement initiatives that make our roads a safer place.

Pub/Shop watch

Local teams will support pub/shop watch. We will share information where appropriate and legal to do so to assist shops and other local businesses to be aware of emerging trends and to aid in implementing suitable crime prevention measures.

Joint enforcement activities

We will continue with and seek to enhance joint enforcement at premises that seek to sell products to the wider public that are not fit for human consumption. This includes illegal tobacco, vapes and alcohol. This will be carried out in partnership with the Police Licensing team as well as external partners such as LCC Trading Standards, Fire and Rescue, environmental protection and immigration. By targeting this enforcement, we seek to impact on wider criminality, antisocial behaviour, safeguard those who are most vulnerable and prevent negative impacts to their health from consumption of unsafe products. Joint working will allow a variety of enforcement options but also allow for us to protect those who have been victimised to be safeguarded and removed from situations whereby they are exploited.

Tackling illegal substances

By developing intelligence against organised groups who utilise premises to grow and subsequently supply illegal substances we will seek to disrupt criminality in the district - this is often associated with antisocial behaviour. Not only is there a risk to the wider community from use of said substances but also the threat around potential faulty electricals and power bypasses creating a fire hazard to that and other properties. Not only will we seek to target and disrupt this behaviour, we will look to educate with partners those who may be corrupted to using substances. During any enforcement we will also seek to use any monies seized/recovered to invest back into the local community under legislation such as the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Public engagements

The local team will seek to hold regular public engagements throughout the district in areas of high footfall so they can gain views of what is important to the wider community. We will utilise these opportunities to provide crime prevention advice, signposting to other agencies who are identified to best support around problems raised and we will use the public’s views to set and manage policing initiatives and priorities throughout the year.

We will continue to increase accessible communication formats for the whole district with a view to building relationships with seldom heard communities and targeted engagements at locations where society’s most vulnerable can be seen.

Engagements will be advertised in advance so the public can see where we will be with the view of maximising the chance of officers to be spoken with.

We will feed back to the community where we have been taking enforcement actions and the results of this action so that we can build on that already established trust with the public in South Holland and continue to hold their confidence that we are working towards what matters the most to them.

Help those in need

We will work with our partners to identify the most vulnerable in our community, offering a high standard of care. Ensuring we have the right resources in the right place at the right time.

Violence against women and girls (VAWG)

VAWG covers multiple crimes that affect women and girls. We will work with other policing teams to ensure such crimes are robustly dealt with and work with partners to ensure such behaviours are shown not be acceptable. We will work with external partners including Crimestoppers to promote and participate in local/national campaigns to ensure that those who may be a victim of criminality - from all communities and backgrounds - have the confidence to speak out and report matters to the police.

Joint agency initiatives

We will work with key partners to help those most in need in South Holland. Partners include the National Health Service, local councils and community safety departments, child and adult services (LCC), Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue, social housing providers and victim services. Police will participate in established forums such as MACE, ASBRAC (Anti-Social Behaviour Risk Assessment Conference), Child in Need meetings and VAP (Vulnerable Adults Panel). We will share information where proportionate and contribute towards safeguarding initiatives and targeted action to help those most in need. We will also seek to initiate and instigate new initiatives with partners to focus resources on those most at risk of harm.

Operation Signature

This is the Force’s campaign to identify and support vulnerable victims of fraud in Lincolnshire. In partnership with the Force’s crime prevention department we will work to provide advice and signposting to those who are targets/victims of fraud. Those who are victim of this crime type are often isolated and unable to acknowledge they are victims. We will work on prevention and signposting to partners to ensure victims have suitable onwards support to prevent them being continually targeted by those who would seek to exploit their vulnerabilities.

Working in partnership with

• The Environment Agency
• Lincolnshire Police and Crime Commissioner
• South and East Lincolnshire Community Safety Partnership
• Police Federation
• South Holland District Council
• what3words
• Pub Watch
• Shop Watch
• Oscar Kilo
• NHS Lincolnshire
• Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue
• Lincolnshire Resilience Forums
• Just Lincolnshire
• Lincolnshire County Council
• HM Coastguard
• NFU