New Community Safety Unit is launched

Jul 22 2010 by Marjorie Kerr, West Lothian Courier

A NEW unit aimed at improving safety on the streets of West Lothian has been launched.

The West Lothian Community Safety Unit, which is believed to be the first of its kind in Scotland, sees police join forces with West Lothian Council.

The unit will see both partners combining their resources into one specialised unit, which will provide positive outcomes for residents in West Lothian.

Based in the Civic Centre, Livingston, where both the police and council share their headquarters, the new unit will focus on tackling issues such as antisocial behaviour, vandalism, deliberate fires and hate crime.

During a visit to Livingston this week, Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill praised the scheme.

He said: “Antisocial behaviour can bring misery to our communities. No-one should have to put up with vandalism, intimidation and abuse on the streets of Scotland.

“It’s decent people living in our communities who hold the key to turning things around.

“This new specialist unit is a fantastic example of law enforcement agencies and the community pulling together to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour.

“The streets of West Lothian will be safer as a result.”

The new unit follows the success of previous joint projects including Operation Focus and the setting up of the new Safer Neighbourhood teams.

Superintendent Jeanette McDiarmid said: “The culture of partnership working is not new to us in West Lothian, however, the facility of partner agencies working within the same environment is a relatively new concept for us.

“Previous initiatives have proven to be extremely successful but there’s potential for us to deliver more and act as an exemplar for other organisations.

“Both the council and the police are doing lots of good work within communities to make West Lothian safer. The Community Safety Unit promotes examples of good practice, helps to eradicate duplication and ensures everyone is pulling together to achieve our joint objectives.”

West Lothian council leader, Peter Johnston, said it’s important for the police and council to draw on each other strengths.

“Issues such as antisocial behaviour can’t be reduced by one single agency, it requires a team approach and that is essentially what the Community Safety Unit is all about,” he said.

“The new Community Safety Unit will take our successes to date and will build on them.”

And West Lothian Council’s chief executive, Alex Linkston, said setting up the unit makes sense given that the police and council both work from the new Civic Centre.

Mr Linkston added: “The new unit is an excellent example of real partnership working and how the council is delivering on the vision of the Civic Centre by delivering integrated services around the needs of our community.

“We are delighted to embark on this ground-breaking approach to delivering safer communities.

“The culture of working closely with our community partners is now commonplace in West Lothian.

“Closer working relationships between the council and police are being forged everyday and the new unit symbolises what it means for community partners to truly work together on programmes that make West Lothian an even safer place to work, live and do business.”