Blandford PACT Meeting 30/1/2012 - Partners And Community Together

OK so when I saw the banner advertising A PACT meeting at the Corn Exchange on Monday 30th January, I had absolutely no idea what it was, I could have googled it but I like to be spontaneous (a convenient way to justify my laziness).

I turned up at the meeting just before the official starting time at 7pm so I could ask whoever was there what PACT is about, when I walked into the hall there were only two local Police Officers there and a third man - a Garrison Staff Officer whose role it is to liaise between Blandford Camp and the town.

GSO Bob Brannigan explained to TBB that "PACT is a multi agency initiative, consisting of local input from the police, councils, schools, youth organisations and housing associations etc, that up until now met on a regular basis. The general format of the meetings would be that members of the public could come along and  voice or write down a local concern, that affects members of the local public, the top 3 concerns raised at a PACT meeting would then be tackled by the relevant agencies".

Some of the members of PACT
left to right - Esme Butler Town Mayor, John Tory PACT Chairman
Doc Addison PACT Secretary & Barrie Cooper  County Councillor 

More people began to turn up...


Town Councillor Mike Owen when asked by TBB, why he was attending the meeting, said rather, no very theatrically "To lament the demise of PACT, this group has been good at finding out the concerns of the public and the Police have been quite good at implementing the requirements of the public, for instance at a meeting last summer the public were tired of a particular12 year old drinking at Stour Park, the Police put in resources to try to solve the problem and they were moderately successful".

The Town Mayor Esme Butler told TBB that her role in PACT and that of the other Blandford Forum Town Councillors is to "Make suggestions like where there should be close circuit TV in town but even though we're elected we don't have that much power". 

Town Councillor Rosemary Holmes far left next to Esme Butler
then left to right John Tory,  Doc Addison & Barrie Cooper  

Town Councillor Rosemary Holmes who was stood with the Town Mayor also told TBB "It's true although we're elected we don't have too much power" 

TBB thinks this is absurd and not very democratic and so will try to find out why locally elected officials don't have much clout to affect positive change in Bandford Forum.

Chairman Of The Blandford PACT Panel John Tory told TBB "This is not a typical meeting because PACT is now changing format, the previous PACT meetings have been successful in terms of public attendance".

Blandford PACT Secretary Doc Addison said "PACT served a very useful purpose however Dorset Police want to move forward and actually meet people on the streets".

Left to right -
Blandford PACT Chairman John Tory, PACT Secretary Doc Addison & Town Mayor Esme Butler

A local Police Officer is also part of the PACT panel 

2 Police Officers attended PACT they mentioned several issues during the meeting that PACT had resolved - one such matter raised by the public was the concern about kids cycling on pavements and cycling without lights. Understandably the Police don't want to prosecute kids for cycling offences, so it was decided that the best way to resolve the problem, was to visit the local newsagents shops early in the morning, so they could chat to the teenagers to make them aware that ALL PEOPLE INCLUDING KIDS & TEENAGERS MUST HAVE LIGHTS ON THEIR BIKES IN THE DARK and to not cycle on the pavements, the local schools also spoke to the pupils about this. The Police said that recently only one adult male has been prosecuted for such an offense.

The panel of Blandford PACT that attended the meeting on Mon 30th Jan

About 8 or 9 member of the public attended the PACT meeting
apologies that above pic is so dark, a light blew just before the meeting started
and I didn't have the camera on the correct setting - whoops

Only about 8 or 9 members of the public attended the meeting, though this is probably because it's format is changing and it was a very cold evening. One woman who was either really tired or really out of it nodded off on the chair she was sitting on during the meeting, I successfully quelled my amusement - though actually it wasn't boring and the panel didn't come across as a boring stuck up bunch of self obsessives (as quite frankly some bureaucratic/official types do). I was actually nicely surprised that the Chairman John Tory genuinely seemed to care about the problems that some young people face, as I noted several times he mentioned that any outward problems some teenagers might display are the symptoms of the problem and that it's the actual root cause which needs to be addressed.

Anthony a member of the public who went along to the meeting, told TBB that he was there to "Voice my concerns about the traffic flow through town". Perhaps Anthony raised his query - hey come on, in fairness to me I'm a blogger not the press and I was distracted by the sleeping woman whose eyes weren't completely closed and her head was tilted to one side so she looked rather peculiar - though everyone else politely ignored her !

PACT as mentioned throughout this blog post, as of now has changed its way of serving the public in the Blandford Forum area, from now on the new format will be Cops in Shops more about that tomorrow....

After the meeting was closed to the public, (eerily) the first thing I noticed when I left the Corn Exchange, were 2 kids between about 10-12 cycling in the opposite direction of the one way system, without lights on their bikes, it's obviously time for the Police to go to the local schools and have a quick word with pupils during assembly !