The number of crimes in Burnham-On-Sea has dropped by two per cent over the past year, according to new figures released this week.
Speaking at the annual town council meeting this week, Sgt Ian Kennett said the number of reported crimes in the Burnham area have dropped while detection rates have risen.
He said: “The total number of recorded crimes fell by 2.1% in the year to April. At the same time two years ago, there were 2,306 crimes reported. In the last 12 months there were 1,947 reported crimes.”
“We have also sustained and slightly improved on the highest levels of crime detection ever recorded in this area from last year. Over the whole 12 month period, our team solved 30.4% of all crime reported.”
“This sustained performance in the crime agenda over a two year period is something we should all be very proud of. As a community, we have made it harder for criminals, both violent ones and those who steal, to offend here and with the continued support of many within the community, more of those offenders have been brought to justice.”
“Clearly the job of preventing and detecting crime will unfortunately never end, but we can safely say that our community is safer and stronger than it has been in the past – I think because we all work together.”
He added that one of the main focuses for Burnham Police in the coming months will be maintaining customer service during financial cutbacks.
“The current financial restrictions on all of us must not be an excuse to reduce the quality of our service or in any way reduce the expectations the community places on its policing team,” he said.
“The realism of the situation will mean there will be changes to how we deliver on those expectations in the future.”
“There will be some redeployment of resources and redistribution of work and responsibilities, to ensure that we are able to continue to deliver the standards of service you are currently used to. Any changes at this time will be made so that they do not effect the numbers of officers delivering the front line emergency response to the public.”
“One of those changes will be in the opening hours of police stations. Burnham Station will remain open 5 days a week with late opening until 8pm at least once a week. The public can still seek contact with an officer at any time, via the phones located directly outside the station.”
“Another change will be the removal of one of the posts providing support to our team through managing the administrative requirements of our work, as well as ensuring the non emergency requests for service are promptly dealt with.”
“Whatever changes are made to our team structure, you can all be assured that there will always be uniformed officers working and available in our area 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”
He added: “We will continue to ensure that the safety of all of those people living, working and visiting our community remains as a top priority for us.”
