Cllrs Charles-Jones and Stuart attended a briefing in Stockport from Kate Green Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester, who shared a number of updates and was accompanied by Natalie Dalby, GMP’s District Commander for Stockport as well as Dave Minto, Area Manager and Carl Petch, Station Manager, from Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service who gave councillors an overview of their respective services and how they were operating.
Issues mentioned included:
- The demanding financial situation across services; the cost of policing the demonstrations from 2023 up to the end of the last financial year had been approx. £3million, for which they have now received additional support from the government for.
- The recognition of good practice in GMP in tackling domestic abuse and child protection; neighbourhood policing remains a top priority.
- Police are undertaking successful enforcement operations in Brinnington with Operation Vulcan and the Town Centre with Operation Rimini.
- E scooters were a concern, with the force looking to use the Drone Unit to tackle these
- GMP have just received notification of additional funding from government to tackle exploitation on the high street and links to organised crime.
- The Fire Service have seen 36 property fires this year compared to 51 last year, there had been a slight increase in secondary fires, eg bin fires; road traffic accidents had risen from 34 last year to 40 this year.
- Water safety has been an area of focus – and the council had helped the fire service in assessing areas of risk near water ways to look at measures to increase safety.
- The fire service does a lot of work on fire prevention, working in prisons and with children who are being drawn into trouble; they are also actively enforcing where there are risks in commercial properties
- There is an increasing trend of dangerous fires caused by e scooters, which can be explosive, where people have carried out modifications there are particular risks.
- Councillors raised concerns about parking being an issue across the ward and asked if there was better data available to help give us an understanding of the longer term trends in the area.