Partners in crime fight hope the Co-op initiative will pay dividends

A new anti-crime initiative was launched in the village on Friday, based in the same building as the Co-op convenience store in Main Road.

It is a partnership between Yapton Parish Council, Sussex Police, and Southern Co-operatives, which owns the store.

Known as the Yapton Advice Partnership (YAP), the scheme was launched by Miriam Minty, head of the government's Respect taskforce, which works on neighbourhood renewal and highlights the need for respect for others and the community.

The YAP is essentially an advice centre where the people of Yapton and the surrounding area can come to discuss any concerns they may have over anti-social behaviour and crime with their police community support officers, PCSOs.

But Yapton Parish Council chairman Michael Fellows hopes that it will develop into a community hub with other services such as the parish council and the Citizens Advice Bureau getting on board.

"The main problem that all parish councils have is that our main point of contact is on the phone or at public meetings.

"This centre gives people in the community the opportunity to go somewhere and talk face-to-face with their PCSO and with council staff on some days to talk about matters which affect them.

"The Co-op have been great to the community since they came here and it was their idea in the first place to use their spare office as an advice centre.

"I would like to see Ford and Climping parish councils getting involved with the centre and using it for their residents as well."

Gareth Lewis, loss prevention manager for the Co-op, said: "The key message is that now it's down to the community to get involved and use the centre.

"It's an exciting initiative, which is an example of how communities can get together, make their voices heard by the people who make a difference and get things done.

"The police and the parish council saw there was a need for face-to-face contact and it seemed a logical solution for us to offer them a space in our building."

Chief inspector Brian Bracher, of Sussex Police, said: "We want people to feel they have a place to go to where they can talk about problems in their community.

"A partnership approach is the only way of addressing anti-social behaviour, because it has many causes behind it.

"The police can do what they do in terms of enforcement to deal with it, but it needs services and education to help to deal with those causes and that's what's starting here.

"I think the centre will help to build a greater community strength because when people come in with a problem and it's addressed, it builds a confidence in the community and the community will be able to police itself.

"Children will know that if they cause problems they will have to answer to the community as well as the police."

The centre is currently open only on Saturdays between 9am and noon but extra opening hours are expected to be added as more volunteers come forward to man the office.