There was good news for Acocks Green at Wednesday evening’s Police Tasking Meeting. The 2010/11 crime statistics are now available and compared with 2009/10, Yardley had the best crime performance (total recorded crime unchanged) of the Birmingham constituencies, and within Yardley, Acocks Green did better than average with a fall of 1.4%

Looking in more details at different types of crime in Acocks Green, burglary was down 7.9% (from 216 to 199), robbery was down 10% (from 70 to 63) and vehicle crime was down 0.8% (from 265 to 263). This is a very good performance in difficult times and our policing team deserve our thanks for their efforts.

We now have a new Inspector; Jim Goodrich and he will attend one of the next few Tasking meetings to introduce himself.

The current tasking priorities are:

1. Vehicle Crime: especially combatting drive offs from petrol stations and theft of number plates (for use in drive offs, not just in Acocks Green but also in Solihull)
2. Tackling anti-social behaviour in Northanger Road. This is an ongoing issue for many months. Recently there have been many arrests and discussions are being held with the City’s Housing team as part of the Safer Estates initiative.
3. Policing traffic around schools at drop off and pick up times to ensure the safety of the children at the schools. 

The next meeting is scheduled to be on Thursday May 6th. As this coincides with the local election day, which means both Police and Councillors will be busy, the formal Tasking meeting is likely to be cancelled, with the previous days Lakey Lane local meeting being made available for residents across Acocks Green to attend if they have any issues that need picking up. The Acocks Green page of the West Midland’s Police website will confirm the arrangements nearer the time.