Birchwood beat surgeries begin

The Welwyn Hatfield Neighbourhood Policing Team hosted the first in a series of beat surgeries at Birchwood Leisure Centre in Hatfield on Saturday (20 April).

Beat surgeries give residents the chance to meet their local police officers face-to-face to chat about any concerns and pick up crime prevention advice.

PC Andrew Dockerill and PCSO Shannon Payne hosted the surgery between 11am and 3pm.

Residents had been encouraged to bring along their bicycles for free bike-marking. The offer was taken up by a number of cyclists, keen to protect their bikes from theft.

A number of other surgeries are planned throughout the rest of the year, all taking place at Birchwood Leisure Centre in Longmead. The dates are:

• Saturday 1 June – 11am-2pm
• Saturday 13 July - 11am-2pm
• Saturday 24 August - 11am-2pm
• Saturday 5 October - 11am-2pm
• Saturday 16 November - 11am-2pm
• Saturday 28 December - 11am-2pm

PCSO Payne said: “We’d like to thank everybody who came along to the beat surgery. Events like these are really important as they help us to understand where we should be focusing our efforts. The feedback you give us is invaluable.

“We know residents find these events helpful so we have planned a number of other beat surgeries throughout the year. We’ll have our bike-marking equipment at all of them, so if you’ve been meaning to get your bike security marked, please come along and we can sort that for you. We look forward to seeing you.”

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