I have been working on the issue of car theft, working alongside our Police Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex, Roger Hirst. Whilst serious crime and antisocial behaviour has decreased dramatically in Essex over recent years, levels of car theft have risen in the past two years. Roger and I held two meetings with local residents in parts of Springfield and Great Baddow to hear from residents who have been affected.
Tackling car theft has now been made one of Essex Police’s main priorities. They have a dedicated team withing the serious crime unit and also a specialist stolen vehicle intelligence unit. Automated Number Plate Recognition cameras have been increased and the police now use state of the art technology to interpret video evidence from people’s cctv and doorbell camera. The police have recovered over 650 vehicles worth more than £14 million, including recovering 40 vehicles last week alone.
Cars are usually stolen in the early hours of the morning and driven rapidly towards the south Essex Ports to be sold overseas. En route the cars are taken to “chop shops” where they can be broken into parts. Essex police have uncovered and shut down 34 of these chop shops. Thieves have been particularly targeting Range Rovers and Fords.
Thieves use digital scanners to copy the wireless signal from the vehicle owner’s car keys. These scanners are soon to be made illegal under new laws passing through Parliament. This will help to disrupt this criminal activity.
There are measures you can take to help protect your vehicle. These include deactivating deactivate passive entry systems, locking gates and bollards or using a “sleeping fob” battery in your car keys – this stops the key sending out an electronic signal when it is stationary. Keep your keys in a faraday bag or tin and, if you have space, consider parking a less valuable car in front of the one that thieves might target.
I joined MPs from across Essex for a major meeting at Basildon Hospital with NHS bosses, including the heads of our hospital trust, mental health trust, ambulance service and the integrated care service. Waiting lists at our local hospitals, including Broomfield have reduced significantly. Key targets, like the time for people to start cancer treatment are also much better than last year.
The ambulance service has improved dramatically, waiting times and turnaround times at hospital A&E are considerably lower than previously, despite a significant increase in demand for ambulances.
The provision of NHS dentistry has also increased. Nearly 2 million NHS funded dentist treatments are available in Mid and South Essex this year and 199 dental practices are signed up to deliver them. In the Chelmsford constituency, there are now 40 more full-time-equivalent direct patient care staff working in general practice than there were in the year before the pandemic. I have asked for further work to be done to reduce the wait time for community paediatricians.
Whilst I was at the hospital, I visited the new 24/7 mental health urgent care department. This very successful service supported around 2,000 urgent mental health patients in its first year of operations, including a number from the Chelmsford area.
I visited Chelmsford Prison where the prisoner numbers are high, partly because our local police have been doing a good job catching criminals. Over recent years, I have helped secure improvements in security for the prison including new body scanners and measures to prevent drugs being thrown over the prison wall. These have helped to keep neighbours, including the nearby school safe. I have always focused on safety of prison staff which has been a issue in the past. On this visit, I was impressed by the positive feedback from staff. It was clear that staff morale has improved.
I popped down to the County Cricket Ground to see the first ball of the new season, it is looking magnificent. I have worked intensively with Essex Cricket as an unpaid, voluntary member of the Board to help them address historic racism issues and turn around the culture. It is now vastly improved.
Essex Cricket in the Community is respected across the UK for the leading work they do in communities all the way from East London to the furthers corners of the East of England. Four members of our ability team have been selected to play for England, the women’s team is exceptional. Essex is bidding to be one of the eight professional women's teams in the country. England women are due to play in Chelmsford later this summer.
Plans are also being drawn up for a major re-development of the ground which, if successful, would mean more international games could be held in Chelmsford. I joined a meeting for local residents so they could see and comment on the draft plans. If you live nearby you might like to know that entry is free on county cup match days after 4pm, so do pop down yourself and enjoy the atmosphere.
