Wolds policing plan (HTML)

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

Foreword

The Lincolnshire Wolds is one of the most scenic areas of the East Midlands and most of it is designated an area of outstanding natural beauty featuring rolling hills and valleys and a section of coastline. It is spread over almost 220 square miles. Along with the adjacent coastal area of Lincolnshire it forms part of East Lindsey District which is amongst the largest districts in the country when measured by area.

The Wolds area has five main population centres with the towns of Louth and Horncastle being the largest followed by Woodhall Spa, Coningsby, and Tattershall. Coningsby is home to RAF Coningsby, an active and busy RAF station.

The Wolds is a popular area for tourism with more than half a million visitors during key months. Our roads carry all of the traffic to the coast with other main routes between Grimsby and Boston, meaning that there is a disproportionate amount of traffic for such a rural area.

Whilst the Wolds is a very safe place to live and visit there are ongoing issues for policing with sporadic issues in our local towns in line with other places of similar population. The geography and distances involved present challenges to policing that we are working hard to address through partnership working and early intervention. This reduces demand, allowing us to focus our attention on the areas that affect the community the most. This means that we are relying on data and evidence to establish where we need to focus our attention and are working to ensure we have the information we need to deploy our staff as effectively as possible.

There will also be a focus on being accessible to the public both in person and through digital means such as social media, StreetSafe and by phone. We will be working hard to ensure seldom heard communities are given a voice.

Over the coming year I will be working closely with other departments within the police service along with our external partners to ensure that the Wolds remains a safe place to live, work and visit and, as importantly, to ensure that people feel safe.

Inspector Matt Bennison
Neighbourhood Policing – Wolds

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 continue to work with our local schools through initiatives such as Mini Police to build relationships and trust and to educate children about safety. We will also prioritise online safety ensuring that children are aware of the risks that exist in the online space with prevention of exploitation being one of the current South Wolds priorities. We will continue to work closely with our colleagues within the crime prevention department to consider how best to deliver against this.

Pedestrian and cyclist safety

We will continue to educate and advise people around the safe use of bicycles, tackling the anti-social use of bikes and e-scooters whilst promoting bike safety to cyclists and drivers with a view to ensuring that cyclists can feel safe to use our roads.

Rural crime

We have seen clear success in the reduction of hare coursing and rural burglaries over recent years and we will continue to build on this success using specialist investigative teams, the rural crime team along with proactive resources such as the Roads Policing Unit (RPU) and our community response teams to provide an effective and robust response to this ongoing problem. We will make best use of intelligence to ensure that we are in the right place at the right time and offenders are targeted relentlessly.

Dispersal Orders

Dispersal Orders: A power granted by an Inspector to direct people they suspect are causing or likely to cause crime, nuisance or anti-social behaviour to members of the public to leave a designated area and not return for up to 48 hours. Under the legislation, officers also have the power to seize any item used in the commission of anti-social behaviour. If a person who has previously been directed to leave the dispersal area returns, an offence would be committed and they could be arrested. Dispersal orders are an effective tool for dealing with incidents linked to night-time economy and antisocial behaviour. When issues arise a log of previous incidents will be kept making the granting of such orders easier, providing our frontline officers with an important tool in preventing antisocial behaviour and serious violence in the Wolds area.

Operation Deepdale

Operation Deepdale has been started to address the ongoing issues of drug supply and the related antisocial behaviour and criminality that goes with it. The operation is led by the local policing team but also involves support from the Roads Policing Unit (RPU), Response officers, and specialist proactive teams and investigation units. Partner agencies including social services, housing agencies and schools are also involved and there will be a focus on preventing the exploitation of vulnerable people including children. We will actively target those who seek to exploit others or benefit from the supply of controlled drugs.

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.

Reducing harm in the Wolds night-time economy

We will work closely with licensees, the licensing department, and local councils to reduce violence, violence against women and girls and the harm associated with the excessive consumption of alcohol. We will do this by working to introduce initiatives such as Ask For Angela and the provision of drink spiking advice and preventative measures. We will proactively patrol lively night time areas providing a visible presence at key times and we will actively target those who supply controlled drugs, or commit acts of violence in our towns and villages. We will also build on the success of our newly relaunched Pubwatch scheme to prevent violent people from accessing local establishments. Our aim is to ensure that everybody feels safe and comfortable in our local pubs and nightclubs.

Pubwatch

We will commit to working with local licensees to support them in running an effective Pubwatch scheme, preventing violent people and those who behave in an anti-social manner form having access to licensed premises. This makes the Wolds a safer, more pleasant environment to enjoy a night out and reduces harm.

Tackling travelling criminals, particularly those involved in burglaries

We recognise that criminals utilise the roads in the same way as law-abiding members of the public and that opportunistic criminals, often from different policing areas, will target those in rural areas. We will work with our community patrol and roads policing colleagues to actively target criminals travelling on our roads using intelligence-led policing in liaison with other forces. We will utilise technology such as ANPR to ensure we are targeting the right people and are deploying resources in the right place at the right time. We will also provide crime prevention advice and reassurance to targeted communities and promote ways for communities to report problems and concerns to us beyond the 101/999 system.

Drink- and drug-drive stop checks

Throughout the summer period we will work closely with our Roads Policing Unit in a united effort to deploy a dedicated drink- and drug-drive stop check operation to prevent, deter and enforce offences of drink- and drug-driving. The operation will take place at several key locations in the district aiming to keep our communities safe on the Wolds road network.

Speeding and anti-social use of vehicles

We will work with those communities most affected by these issues to provide speed checks, assist in the establishment of community speedwatch schemes in conjunction with the Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership (LRSP) and we will work to carry out surveys where there is a perception of speeding to better understand where there are problems.

Operation California

Operation California is designed to combat the use of recreational drugs during the night-time economy in the Wolds district. We work closely with colleagues in our dedicated licensing team and local licensees. Using itemiser technology, we can accurately detect small traces of drugs within only eight seconds. This is an essential tool in combating the use of illegal drugs in our bars, public houses and nightclubs.

Operation Define

We will build on the success of Operation Define the purpose of which is to target and disrupt offenders, denying them access and opportunity to commit crime or serious road harm in our communities through fixed point policing on some of the area’s busiest roads. The operation relies on the specialist skills and knowledge of the Roads Policing Unit (RPU) in Lincolnshire. This proactive approach will be deployed at key times through the year providing high-visibility policing activity, targeted at those intent on causing harm within our communities in an effort to minimise the risk to the public and road users.

Develop a culture of problem solving

We will work closely with our problem-solving team to ensure that we use a structured approach to tackling issues using data and evidence to lead our decision-making and to ensure we are achieving what we set out to do. We will look wider than our local area to establish best practice, what has worked elsewhere and we will share our positive results. We will work closely with local partners establishing who is best placed to lead on an issue regardless of who they work for.

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.

Engagement with seldom-heard communities

We will work with local teams, analysts and partner agencies to establish who our seldom heard communities are and how best to reach them. We know that certain communities such as the disabled and elderly are less likely to reach out despite being just as likely if not more so to be victims of crime and anti-social behaviour. In order to tackle this and make sure our priorities reflect the views of the entire community we will find ways to proactively contact such groups, encouraging them to offer their views and finding innovative ways for them to express themselves.

On top of this we will continue to build our social media presence providing means for a two way conversation with our communities in an informal manner. We will also actively promote the use of StreetSafe and the Nextdoor app to report issues.

Violence against women and girls (VAWG)

The term ‘Violence Against Women and Girls’ (VAWG) covers a range of crimes, with the common theme that they disproportionately affect women and girls. The most recent statistics show that one in five women are victims of sexual assault (or attempted assault) in their lifetime.

In July 2021, the government launched its Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy. Evidence presented in the strategy suggests that some forms of violence against women and girls are so commonplace that many women and girls don’t even think they are worth reporting.

This is the case for experiences like being grabbed, touched and/or threatened by strangers.

The Wolds Policing Plan looks to utilise the additional policing resources to proactively target such offences against women and girls. Through detailed data analysis we understand where our officers are best deployed to prevent offences and support those affected by such behaviour. Through visibility and early engagement, we will create a safe environment for women and girls to enjoy the Wolds day and night.

Working in partnership with

• East Midlands Ambulance Service
• Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue
• Lincolnshire Police and Crime Commissioner
• East Lindsey District Council
• Platform Housing Group
• Lincolnshire Housing Partnership
• Safer Lincolnshire Partnership
• NHS Lincolnshire
• Lincolnshire Resilience Forum
• Just Lincolnshire
• Home Office
• Probation Service
• Longhurst Group