Happy to show others ongoing work in Crieff
Dear Editor
I read with interest in the January 6 edition that the local Conservative councillor, MSP and a prospective council candidate are calling for a meeting over the vandalism in Crieff.
Perhaps I can give your readers an insight into what I and others have been involved in over the past seven months to find a solution.
Perth and Kinross Council arranges regular community safety online meetings for councillors and I have represented this ward at each and every one of them during the past year, raising the issues that Crieff has been experiencing with relation to the vandalism.
This has led to meetings with officers from Police Scotland, from our hard-working local community officers right up to the local area commander who, along with PKC’s community safety team, has set up a youth strategy group.
This work also involves representatives from the council’s education, youth services and social work teams and is working to tackle the behaviour of the individuals causing these problems and minimise the effect on our community.
In addition to this work, the youth engagement team and community wardens are in Crieff every weekend to support the police.
Additionally, we have a further multi-agency group looking at an older group in the town.
Monthly meetings are set up with the local community police officer, sometimes more regularly if needed, to keep in touch with any updates.
In March last year I managed to secure £40k in the PKC budget for community safety measures for Crieff.
The first of the CCTV is due to be installed within the next few weeks after going through a public consultation and obtaining planning permission, with further cameras also due to be installed around the town in problem spots.
The Independent/Labour Group also secured £480k funding in the council budget to employ visitor rangers to help tackle anti-social behaviour created by some of the visitors over the summer.
I would of course be delighted to show my fellow elected representatives the excellent work already going on and perhaps save our hardworking officers from an extra meeting if they should wish to.