Weekly Force Update

Hello Resident, I hope you are doing well. It’s your local PCSO, PCSO Priest here with the weekly force update.

We would like to update you on what we have been doing in the Bartley Green area this week:

It was great to see people come to the most recent Cuppa with a Copper at Holloway Hall, where officers were able to speak to people and answer any questions you may have had for us whether that be concerns or advice. This is the first time we have done one at Holloway Hall, and like the Cuppa with a Copper we do at St Francis centre and Milebrook Hall. We are making this a permanent thing meaning that officers will attend three different locations in Bartley Green throughout the month.

Earlier this week, you may have seen a message from my College PCSO Swift. Some of you may already know PCSO Swift, and you may also know that she worked on the neighbourhood team for Quinton. And now PCSO Swift is moving to Bartley Green and will bring her skill's and experience to help face and tackle issues within Bartley Green.

Since the last WMNOW message, we have received reports of people stealing other peoples credit card from the ATM machine, and then being able to have access to the contents of the credit card allowing them to withdraw money from the machine. We advise that when you use an ATM machine, you don't let anyone get to close and surround you as they could be trying to look at your credit card PIN, as well as trying to take the credit card it self, without you noticing. We also advise that you cover the screen and keypad of the ATM with your body making it difficult for other people to see what you are typing into the keypad and what information is on the ATM machine screen.

Since the last WMNOW message, we have had three reports of residential homes being broken into. We advise you to make sure all your windows and doors (Front and Back), are locked properly as the first thing people do to gain entry to your home, is try the windows and doors to see if they are unlocked. We also advise that you install Anti-snap locks as if people can not get in through an open window or door, then they will try to snap the lock to force entry, but the Anti-snap lock will making it difficult for the person to force entry into your home.

We regularly deal with drivers who decide to park up wherever they please, what can then cause issues within the area what can block homeowners from entering or leaving their home, or can cause residents to have to walk in the middle of the road due to how cars have blocked the pavement. We work with multiple members of the community, and we try and tackle these issues together through multiple different avenues. But we are not always present to tackle them. But we do have a solution what can benefit everyone and get you more involved in tackling the issues yourselves. In the link below this paragraph, it will take you to our West Midlands Police page where you can report vehicles what park dangerously, are abandoned, park on your driveway or blocking your driveway etc. Each option will have a clickable link next to it where you can put in the necessary information through a list of questions. Once it is all filled in, it will be sent to a specialist team for review so they can deal with the issue reported to us.

Parking issues and abandoned vehicles | West Midlands Police

Birmingham City Council also have a website similar to ours, what allows you to report vehicles causing an obstruction. 

We do advise you to use ours, but if it is ever the case where our website is down then please use this link below as a second resort to reporting the issue you see and face.

Report an illegally parked vehicle | Birmingham City Council

We still encourage residents to register their home/business CCTV and doorbell cameras, as this helps us solve crimes by providing us the appropriate footage what captures the crime in question. This not only helps us solves crimes, but it also helps to keep your community safer. 

You can use the link below, what takes you to our web page where you can register your CCTV cameras by putting in your details. This helps officers be able to get in contact with you if they believe your CCTV camera has potential digital footage of a crime being committed, as they can see the local area where crime has took place, and see your CCTV camera present in that area. This will help officers in dealing with crimes more quickly and swiftly, what will then allow them to do more jobs, helping to make the community a safer place.

CCTV Registry | West Midlands Police

As of this moment we are still currently at 1002 members who have signed up on wmnow for Bartley green. 

I believe in the saying ‘the more the merrier’, so if you know someone who may have an interest in joining, then please share them this link below. This will take them to the wmnow websites homepage, where they can create an account by clicking the sign-up button, and then put in the necessary information. Once everything is done and the account is created, they can then receive force update messages from their local Neighbour team. This helps to bring a community together and gives us the chance to receive information and intelligence about anything going on in the area.

Home Page - WMnow

We are still experiencing an increase of demand from across the area over the last few weeks, with more people calling and asking for help. Our staff are working extremely hard to answer and respond to your calls and live chats. But due to the high demand it can cause callers to have to wait longer than they should, what if something neither of us want at all. We prioritize your enquires/calls based on how urgent they are, but we always appreciate that you want help as soon as possible.

In Non-emergencies circumstances, we want you to get in contact with us through the live web chat, or the Non-emergency telephone 101.

If your circumstances are emergencies, then please call 999.

We are still looking to recruit for the Street watch initiative. For further information please visit the WMP website for details. 

You can use the link below what will take you to our page where the necessary steps to register your interest in the street watch programme, can be made.

Street Watch | West Midlands Police

Bartley Green Neighbourhood Team.