Let’s hear from our partners

We’re committed to helping build safe and friendly communities. This means that we will work with partners to address incidents quickly and effectively, and to ensure that you can feel safe in and around your home.

A large part of keeping you safe involves us working closely with Hertfordshire Constabulary and Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue. We spoke to Andy Wiseman and Robin Clark to get an overview of these services and how they can support you.

I’m grateful to Watford Community Housing for inviting me to contribute to this edition of Voice. I took on the role of Chief Inspector for the Watford Community Safety Partnership at the start of the year and I am immensely proud to hold this position.

I thought it would be beneficial to provide an overview of policing in Watford: 

• Having served the town well for 83 years, the existing police station on Shady Lane has come to the end of its life and we are set to move to a new police station, at 3 George Street in the town centre, in November 2023. 
• The area is served by five ‘999 response’ teams (known as 'Intervention’ teams), which provide assistance 24/7, 365 days of the year. We also have a proactive ‘Operation Scorpion’ unit, which develops intelligence information, targets key offenders and patrols crime hotspots. 
• Overall, in Watford there are roughly 150 police officers, police staff and volunteers including Special Constables. Hertfordshire Constabulary currently has 2,300 police officers, the most we’ve ever had! 
• As of September 2023 reported crime in Watford is slightly down compared to this time last year and our detection rate is up. I am committed to maintaining these trends.

Since arriving in Watford one of my immediate priorities has been the prevention and detection of street robberies. In recent months we have deployed targeted patrols and I am pleased to report that this has led directly to the arrest of several suspected robbers and a drop in the number of robberies since.

Similarly, I have been keen to tackle thefts from/of motor vehicles. We are using crime data on a daily basis to target our resources and again, have made progress in recent weeks both in terms of arresting suspected offenders and potentially preventing thefts by educating local residents to keep vehicles locked when parked overnight.

I am also committed to tackling violence against women and girls, not least in terms of the town’s night-time economy. We are currently in the process of changing the way we deploy officers in order to maximise opportunities to identify predatory behaviour early on, with the aim of preventing offences from occurring.

I am keen to instil a ‘back to basics’ model of policing – the public want to see their police out on patrol, to know who their local officers are and to receive a good service in the event that they call for our assistance. I believe that this is all achievable.

Of course, our work would be much harder were it not for the support and information we receive from the communities we police and the partner agencies also serving Watford. My officers and I really want to hear from our communities.

There are lots of ways to get in touch: 

• Call 999 in an emergency, 101 for general enquiries and non-emergency reports
• Visit www.herts.police.uk for information about the constabulary, including local officer details and to report a non-emergency crime, incidents or anti-social behaviour online 
• Email the Safer Neighbourhood Team for Watford at Watford@herts.police.uk 
• Visit www.crimestoppers-uk.org or ring 0800 555 111 to give information anonymously 
• Visit capture.rantandrave.com/s3/WatCentral to give us feedback 
• Follow us on Facebook (WatfordPolice) or X, previously known as Twitter (@WatfordPolice) 
• Visit www.owl.co.uk to sign up to our online Neighbourhood Watch scheme

I am Robin Clark, the Fire Safety Inspector employed by Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue (HFRS) in the Fire Protection Department. As a department we cover the whole county, but we are split into six teams and cover specific areas. I am the Lead Officer for Watford and Three Rivers and currently I have three officers attached to my team.

I joined the service in 2018 and at that time had no background of working in fire safety. It has been a steep learning curve, especially post-Grenfell. Hopefully the lessons learned from that event will make for a safer environment in the future as the building industry and enforcing authorities take heed of the mistakes that led to that event.

We work closely with Watford Community Housing to keep residents safe. The communal areas of flats – such as the corridors, staircases, individual flat doors, corridor fire doors and the outside walls and balconies – fall under our remit, so we carry out fire safety inspections.

We also work together to identify fire issues in a block. For example, there was recently an electrical scooter fire in a storage area of a block of flats. The fire burnt itself out before HFRS attended but it identified the issue and worked with Watford Community Housing to educate the residents of the possible dangers of charging electrical devices. If we see items left in communal areas that are a fire hazard during our fire inspections we alert Watford Community Housing, who get it removed as quickly as possible.

HFRS has several areas of work other than firefighting – we have community engagement teams who do things such as the home ‘safe and well’ visits, and youth engagement schemes who work with partner agencies such as the police or housing associations like Watford Community Housing.

We are also involved in Safety Advisory Groups (SAG) where we work closely with the police, ambulance service, licensing authorities, highways local authorities, and event promoters to make sure events are as safe as they can be.

My one piece of advice would be to be aware of where you buy your electrical items from – ask yourself why they are so cheap, especially when buying online. They tend to be cheap because the manufacturer has saved money by not including all the safety features.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch: 

• If it’s an emergency, please call 999. 
• Visit hertfordshire.gov.uk and choose ‘fire and rescue’ 
• You can find us on X (@HFRS), and on Facebook (Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service) 
• If there is a major incident in your area, the control room will update our social media with up-to-date information, such as road closures or informing residents to shut windows due to the smoke etc. 
• If you would like to arrange a ‘safe and well’ visit to your home, you can phone your local fire station to arrange an appointment or visit our website.