Security in Chelsfield Park – Please respond
As you will be aware, there have been some disturbing security incidents within the Chelsfield Park area in recent months, including masked gangs stealing tools from work vans on driveways, intruders entering residents’ gardens and houses and many vehicle thefts, amongst other things.
We know from our engagement with the local police that the Chelsfield Park area is not a priority and police patrols are rare. With that in mind, and with the support of The Chelsfield Park Residents Association (CPRA), several residents have formed a small, informal security working group to look at what can be done to improve safety and security in the park.
Specifically, the group has been considering how we can increase the security posture of Chelsfield Park and implement a strong deterrent to crime and the ability to respond to incidents within minutes.
We have recently made some preliminary enquiries with My Local Bobby, a residential security company founded and run by an ex-Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Inspector, to learn more about what a company like that could offer to Chelsfield Park.
In short, My Local Bobby provides proactive patrols of residential areas, is able to respond immediately to incidents, alarm activations or reports from residents and can intervene to make citizens arrests where necessary. My Local Bobby would become an integrated part of the community and conduct security checks on property and vehicles, monitor properties when residents are away on holiday and even report broken streetlights, fly-tipping and other concerns, as well as provide emergency first aid to those in need.
Please see their PDF for some further general information about My Local Bobby.
The service would be offered to all Chelsfield Park residents but every household would choose whether or not to subscribe to the service and only then have access to all of the benefits for their property. There would also be a general benefit to all residents of the patrol being in the area and acting as a deterrent.
We believe this idea is worth pursuing and could have significant benefits for all residents by reducing crime, increasing safety and providing peace of mind. We would therefore like to invite you to let us know if you would be interested in such a service. At this point, there is no firm commitment, it is just an expression of interest so that we know whether the idea has enough support to get off the ground.
Our plan is to arrange a short meeting, with a presentation from My Local Bobby, so you can hear directly from the team and ask any questions you may have about the service they provide. Once everyone has had the chance to understand the benefits in more detail, they would then have the opportunity to subscribe to the service.
It goes without saying that, the more households that are interested, the more chance there is that we could implement such a service for the benefit of everyone in Chelsfield Park and the cheaper it would be for all. To give you an idea of the potential cost, it is likely to range from £50-£130 per month for each household that signs up, for an 8 hour per day patrol, if 50-150 households get involved.
If there is sufficient interest to make it viable, then we would propose a formal tendering process for the service from multiple providers to get the best possible deal.
Please let us know by using the link below if you would like to express an interest in such a service and learn more. We appreciate this won’t be for everyone but we would ask that you keep an open mind and give the idea fair consideration.
Kind regards,
Allan Blake
Stuart Barr
Rod Richardson
Surinder Manak