Update from Inspector Matt Wilson

In March 2024, local businesses and residents, particularly around Hessle Square, were reporting groups of up to 20 young people congregating and engaging in low level ASB. My team have engaged with residents and businesses involved in order to encourage reporting, give advice and reassurance as well as engaging with the youths themselves to divert away from crime. Due to the increase in both crime and anti-social behaviour, I attended the public meeting with Hessle Town Council in May and announced some youth partnership work with East Riding Council who secured funding to run some engagement activities during the summer period. This included detached youth workers going out during the week, engaging with young people across Hessle and then every Thursday of the Summer Holidays, hosting food and activities on King George V playing fields. Officers from the local team also attending in order to build relationships.

The project was called ‘Our Place’ as previously publicised – https://www.eastriding.gov.uk/news/article/?entry=2229

During the 6 weeks, 98 young people officially booked onto the events, although any others in the area at the time were not turned away and the feedback received was positive. When we take vehicle nuisance out of the ASB reports (which we know is a separate issue with on-going work), other reports went from 12 in March down to 0 in August which is testament to the work of all involved. We continue to look at further provision later in the year.

On another positive note, crime figures for Hessle are also heading in the right direction – there was a peak of 121 offences in April 2024 which in August was 36% lower with 78 offences. September is likely to be similar. We do however continue to see this issue of shed and garage burglaries continue to come and go, particularly those areas that are isolated with alleyways running at the back of addresses. I would encourage residents in those areas to invest in a shed / garage alarm and consider security lighting if able.

Whilst we are aware of the ASB in relation to electric bikes / motorcycles – this continues to be tackled by our Operation Yellowfin and Operation Yokohama motorcycle teams and I encourage local residents to continue reporting incidents and information involving them – this is not a problem unique to Hessle but we need help from the community stopping it.

As always, your neighbourhood team will continue to listen to concerns of the local community.

Hessle is a great place to live and we want it to continue that way but we also need the local community supporting us, passing on information, reporting what is going on directly to us. I would ask that you sign up to My Community Alert in order to get information on issues happening in your area – https://www.mycommunityalert.co.uk/ which also allows 2-way communication. Additionally, please complete our survey on a regular basis so we know when we are setting our local priorities for Hessle every 2 months, we know what matters to you.

You can complete the survey without registering for My Community Alert however we would encourage you do sign up – https://survey.mycommunityalert.co.uk/Survey