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Sheffield North West

Date published: 06 February 2024 11:30

Welcome message from the Neighbourhood Inspector Nik Dodsworth

Hello and welcome to the Sheffield North West NPT team pages. I’m Nik Dodsworth, the local policing Inspector for the area, and I am proud to serve the public of North West Sheffield.

I have twenty-four years’ service with South Yorkshire Police during which I have worked predominantly in Sheffield on our Response Teams as a constable, Sergeant and Inspector. I have also been a firearms officer and a Force Incident Manager, and I am an accredited firearms and public order commander.

I know this area of Sheffield very well and look forward to meeting the very different needs of the diverse communities within, from Broomhall through to Midhopestones and everywhere in between.

We will continue to tackle the issues you told us are most important to you - road safety, burglary, drug abuse and rural crime. We’ll regularly review these with you to make sure we address your biggest concerns. We’ll also identify and intervene in local emerging problems with bespoke policing plans, working hand-in-hand with you and our partners.

Operation Park Safe was introduced by our team as a trial in June 2022, after the local community named bad parking as a key priority in terms of issues they want the police to tackle. To find out more about Operation Park Safe, read our handy guidance document. To report the parking issues that police deal with online, complete our online form.

If you need anything from the team or just want to pop in for a chat, we’re based at Snig Hill and Deepcar Police Stations, and regularly attend community events and meetings across the North West of the city.

I look forward to meeting you!

Your local police station is:

Snig Hill Police Station

Snig Hill, Sheffield
S3 8LY

You can contact us:

The priorities for the Sheffield North West Neighbourhood Policing Team are:

Road safety, including speeding, dangerous driving and parking complaints.

This, when combined, was the largest area of concern for our community.  We will work with our partners, and put in place strong community measures like community speed watch to increase surveillance on the roads and to make speeding less "consequence free". In June 2022 we started Operation Parksafe in the North West Police area, in reduce the issue of illegal, dangerous and anti-social parking.

Burglary

You told us that you are concerned about burglaries in your area.  We are working to reduce burglaries by working with our partners to reduce and prevent burglars, and by arresting those responsible. We currently have three problem solving plans relating to the most burgled areas of the city, designed to reduce long term burglary by increasing security measures in those areas in conjunction with our local partners.

Vehicle crime

You told us that you were increasingly concerned about vehicles being broken into or stolen.  We will work to identify those responsible, but also to make our communities safer with neighbourhood watch schemes, CCTV and other methods to reduce this issue.  We have also found that by paying close attention to badly parked cars, we find that sometimes that people who park their cars without a care for them, do so because the car doesn't belong to them.  In this way Operation Park Safe also addresses vehicle crime.

We are currently working with the manufacturers of some of the vehicles most frequently stolen to try and tackle the issue.  In the meantime, we recommend that people who own vehicles that are targeted by car thieves, such as Land Rovers, Ford Transit vans, and Ford Fiesta STs to use a sold secure approved steering lock.

You said...

Dangerous driving and road safety are a concern to us.

We did...

This month we have executed operations on Ecclesall Road, in order to deal with people using their hand-held mobile phones whilst driving. A frankly disappointing number of people were spoken to, but the tactic was very successful, and we are looking forward to continuing to crack down on those who put other people at risk by failing to drive responsibly.

Moreover, over the festive period, the team have been busy with Operation Break Limit Kilo. This operation combines the Christmas drink driving campaign and targets anti-social drivers/vehicles. This operation resulted in two arrests relating to driving whilst over the prescribed limit of alcohol/drugs. In total, we stopped 49 vehicles for document checks, and 45 of those individuals were breathalyzed. We conducted 7 stop searches, 3 of which were positive for Cannabis, leading to three individuals being interviewed and dealt with accordingly. A further individual was reported on summons for having bald tyres.

We will be continuing to do random check sites over the Christmas period in both Stannington and Stocksbridge wards and we will deal with anyone who drives whilst over the prescribed limit for drink or drugs and for any other offences that come to light. So please do not risk driving after drinking or taking drugs or it could be you facing a driving ban.

You said...

Drug dealing and Organised Crime is a concern to us.

We did...

We have been relentless in disrupting drug supply and organised crime in our area.

Stop Searches
Over the last four months, over 100 stop searches have been completed. Stop searches are imperative to disrupting the everyday dealings and transactions of our local nominals and identifies those engaging in criminality in our area,

£200,000 of drugs off our streets
After receiving intelligence about a possible Cannabis grow, a drugs warrant was obtained and executed and over £200,000 worth of Cannabis was seized.

Between October 2021 and March 2022, we saw a significant increase in most serious violence in the Abbeydale Road corridor. This included a high number of firearms discharges along with 12 stabbing incidents. Due to the increasing demand and threat posed, Operation Train Kilo was formed.

For Sheffield this was about improving trust and confidence within our local community who were concerned due to escalating violence in this area. The team's hard work and dedication has excellent results and in a three-month period, the small team completed a number of stop and searches and arrests, and recovered a significant amount of drugs, weapons and cash all linked to organised crime prevention. This is a showcase piece of work for Sheffield that is leading the way in terms of practice across the force, and it’s made a significant difference in the community and to safety.

Furthermore, This month the team took part in Op Sceptre, which is the national week of action in relation to knife crime. This was a joint effort with the Hillsborough and Walkley team, coming together with Deepcar to effectively patrol the areas.

We use our Knife Arch technology at public places where there is a natural narrowing for people to go through. Communal areas in lifts have proven to be very successful. Explanatory leaflets help residents understand what we are doing, and the vast majority were supportive and helpful. Offenders display immediate avoidance behaviour. The smell of cannabis, knife alarm activation and such avoidance give rise to stop and search. We had 6 stopped and searched during a three-hour deployment.

Targeted areas included Stannington tower blocks, Brightmore Drive and Martin Street Flats

You said...

Dangerous parking is an issue in our area.

We did...

Over recent months our Deepcar Team have been tackling dangerous parking and driving at beauty spots in the North West of the city, particularly around local reservoirs. This activity was a direct response to comments received by the team via social media and has resulted in a number of fines and warnings being issued.

The North West team have been key in executing Operation Park Safe. Operation Park Safe is a multi-agency response to what local residents voted as their second highest priority in the North West policing area when surveyed in December 2021. The Broomhall PCSO team have been key to making this operation work and have together submitted hundreds of prosecutions and dozens of files.

You said...

You were concerned about burglaries in the area.

We did...

PCs Simon Nolan and Jamie Beet who are the University police officers, were supported by the Broomhall team, in providing advice to students at the University housing fair about what to look for when they are searching for properties. We also took the opportunity to speak to landlords about how to improve the security of their properties, to make sure that it is a more difficult environment for predatory burglars. Burglary is somewhat of a theme this week, as one man was arrested and charged with a student house burglary in the S10 area last week. A male was arrested by response officers who saw that he matched the description of someone who had been disturbed breaking into a property, and when stop searching him found a hammer in his bag, and property from a burglary nearby.

The team recently acted on CCTV evidence of three males stealing a flatbed transit and an off road buggy from the university. We attended one of the suspects addresses and arrested him for the thefts. Also, there was the van involved and the suspect had the keys on him for the vehicle, which was recovered. House and premises searches were completed before the male was interviewed and bailed for further enquiries

We regularly host pop-in police stations and attend community events, providing an opportunity for you to come and have a chat with us about concerns or issues in your area. We'll have your local PCSOs and PCs on hand to listen and chat to you about what's on your mind. Keep an eye on our Sheffield North West NPT Facebook page to find out when the next events are.

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