Cumbria Neighbourhood Watch Association (CNWA) and Cumbria Constabulary launch Voice Connect at 2pm, on Wednesday 23 March, at Rheged, near Penrith. Guest speakers will include Paul Musgrave, Chair of CNWA, ACC Graham Sunderland, Lynne Smith, Police Account Manager for Voice Connect, Andrea Bell South Area Neighbourhood Watch Co-ordinator.
Cumbria Constabulary and CNWA in partnership have installed new technology, aimed specifically at cutting crime across the county. As part of the Constabularys commitment to working in partnership with CNWA, the new telecoms system, known as Voice Connect Relay has been bought, funded by the countys Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships.
The system is primarily used to alert CNWA Co-ordinators and Local Policing Team / Community Officers to crime and suspicious activity within the county. It is capable of sending out messages to large numbers of people using text, voice mail or e-mail. Voice Connect is one of latest innovations the county, designed to bring the police, CNWA and the community together.
It was felt by the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership that CNWA could have a significant impact on cutting crime given the right tools. As a result over the last 18 months measures to achieve this were put in place, including the creation of CNW Development Officer posts for each area and the introduction of Voice Connect.
Andrea Bell a CNWA Development Officer for South Cumbria said we as development officers believe that all partnerships should be involved in reducing crime together. There is a lot of good work going that the public that dont always get to hear about. With Voice Connect we can quickly send out any information, to as many people as required. There are currently 800 plus people on the CNWA database a figure, which is steadily growing and we want to increase, which with the help of tools like Voice Connect and the Area Development Officers we hope to do.
Police and CNWA are delighted with the way in which the system can so easily deal with messaging large numbers of people, changing the way information is shared and crime is dealt with at community level. CNWA Development Officer for West Cumbria, John Thornthwaite said now with this system, co-ordinators across the county can be contacted quickly and efficiently, scheme members feel part of an organisation, they are now more aware of what is happening and able to work alongside other member agencies to reduce the fear of crime and raise quality of life issues. Before Voice Connect we would ring people in the street where a crime had taken place, but we simply didnt have the capability to ring people in adjoining streets or areas - now we can pass information in a matter of minutes.
Not only are the officers pleased with the way in which the new system has bedded in, they also have plans to extend the system and use it widely across the force. Both Andrea and John said initially we wanted it for Neighbourhood Watch, but we have found that the system has a lot of other uses. In Cumbria we have several other watch schemes looking at the system: Country Watch and Dawn Watch are already both on the system. We are also looking at ways of expanding it to make it even more of a tool for the police force, To this end, it is planned that the Communications Centre supervisors will be trained to use Voice Connect, so if there is a serious incident, such as a missing child, requiring instant action at the weekends or out of hours, the Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) can use the system to contact relevant parties within the force, as well as within the local community. Voice Connect is a central plank in the way forward, now CNWA has the system; its uses are only limited by our imaginations.
