Your local neighbourhood police – coming to a living room near you

Inspector Michelle Hughes of the Rochdale South Neighbourhood Policing Team

Rochdale South police are revolutionising the way they communicate with residents as they prepare for their second online meeting on Thursday 20 September.

The meetings, known as Virtual PACTs (Police and Communities Together), are web chats between residents and police and Rochdale is only the second police division in Greater Manchester to hold them after Oldham launched them earlier this year.

The next online PACT, starting at 7pm, will be updating residents on the latest police operations, including a drive to reduce anti social behaviour (asb) in Castleton, which has resulted in a 30 per cent drop in asb compared to last year.

They will also give out the latest crime statistics as well as giving top crime prevention tips.

Residents will also hear about recent police work in the area and any questions they choose to ask will be answered.

A member of the council's Enforcement team will join the police online to address any local concerns around dog fouling, fly tipping or littering.

The standard PACT meetings will continue, but the online PACTs are another way that people can communicate with their local officers, and all without having to leave the house.

Michelle Hughes, Neighbourhood Inspector for Rochdale South, said: “We want to make it as easy as possible for residents to connect with us and tell us their concerns and online pacts are a great way of doing this. It means that residents who are too busy to attend meetings can still speak to us and raise issues in a comfortable environment.”

Councillor Sultan Ali, Cabinet Member for Strengthening Communities, said: “We want all the residents in our borough to feel safe and secure and to enjoy a good quality of life and making it easier to talk to their local police and council officers is an important part of this. I’d encourage as many people as possible to log on and see what it’s all about.”

Rochdale South covers the areas of Balderstone and Kirkholt, Castleton, Kingsway and Milkstone and Deeplish.

How to get involved:

• Go to www.gmp.police.uk
• Along the top of the page, you will see a tab saying ‘your neighbourhood’. Click on this and select Rochdale on the drop down menu.
• On the new page, just to the right hand of the coloured map, you will see the different neighbourhoods listed. Click on Rochdale South and your local neighbourhood page will appear.
• At the bottom of the Rochdale South page is a section called ‘Rochdale South PACT meeting’.
• All you need to do to follow the meeting is watch this screen. People’s questions and comments will appear, alongside the officers’ responses.
• To join in the discussion, simply type your question or comment into the white box which appears on the screen and press enter.
• Questions won’t get published straight away, but will go into a queue and be answered during the course of the meeting.
• The chat room is already on the page but won’t open until an hour before the meeting. However, you can visit the page before then and enter your email address into the white box to get an email reminder.