Cumberland councillors set to receive extra training

Members of Cumberland Council’s place overview and scrutiny committee met at Allerdale House in Workington on Wednesday (March 19) to consider a report – Cumberland Community Safety Partnership six-month interim report and, when it was suggested that they receive the training it, was agreed.

Richard Quinn, the council’s safer communities manager, told members that it was the first opportunity to present his report and priorities identified last May included:Domestic Abuse;

• Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG);
• Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB);
• Community Cohesion.

Mr Quinn said they would be revising the list of anti-social behaviour hotspots and added: “Police carry out hot spot patrolling in areas of high anti-social behaviour and that will continue into next year as well.”

He said that the first domestic abuse conference had been organised in more than a decade which was well attended and a new app called Walksafe had been released which had already had around 6,000 interactions to date.

According to the report from the partnership community cohesion was identified as apriority in the wake of last summer’s riots. It states: “It would be remiss of us not to acknowledge the rioting that occurred over the summer of 2024 and the impact that this had on our communities and in turn community cohesion.

“Whilst Cumbria did not experience any direct rioting, there were a number of arrests for online public order offences. This has all had a significant impact on our communities and their sense of safety and security.

“We felt that it was necessary to re-evaluate our approach in light of the riots, to ensure that we are both responding to the needs of our communities and to ensure that we are focused on prevention.

“To that end, over and above the Community Cohesion plan set in May 2024 we have also developed a Hate Crime Plan for Cumberland and a focused intervention on tackling root cause.”