Purewell and Stanpit Crime Survey

I am going to write to all residents this month about the findings as a result of last years crime survey in Purewell and Stanpit. Whilst not going into endless detail, the results are more that encouraging than were expected. To start with over 17% of the letters sent out were returned with comments about the effect of crime on residents wellbeing. Less than 7% considered that crime or anti social behaviour was affecting their wellbeing which is a dramatic change from last year when ASB incidents were driving everyone crazy.Residents fear of crime showed an equally dramatic drop so in simple terms this means that they feel safer in their homes and neighbourhoods than they did last year. This bucks the trend because across the Borough this statistic has increased, although only slightly. So it is thanks to all our team Sparky, Joel our Police team and PACT members for all their hard work in making this happen. Homewatch has also made a big contribution with residents now actively engaged in being the eyes and ears of our community. And of course thanks to all our constituents for giving us the chance to deliver what we promised at the election. Speeding and anti social driving remains high on the list and I am very concerned that latest statistics show that this is not responding to treatment. This is one area where although we have installed calming at Stanpit and realigned Mudeford Lane, we are not seeing improvements. The new crossing at Purewell (the Rosie Havers crossing) will help in that area but I am afraid drastic action is going to be required by law enforcement and the safety team if we are going to see an improvement.Reckless driving is almost becoming the norm and this has to be dealt with.The perception of speed in our increasingly urban areas is another issue we must tackle. With more people riding cycles and walking it is not surprising that the public have a concern about speed of traffic.We may well be reaching the stage where in certain high density residential areas 'twenty is plenty' will have to be considered.