Leamington Police Station opened up its doors to the public on Sunday 1st July as part of its 150 years celebrations.

The event was a resounding success with nearly a thousand visitors of all ages. Attractions were varied from police pedal cycles to police vehicles from past and present.

The Town Centre SNT are now fully equiped with 5 cycles and clothing for the officers to be able to travel around thier area far more effectively and efficently. The officers have been out on the cycles over the past two weeks and have already been impressed by the effectiveness of the equipment. Local offenders are now aware of the equipment the officers have and this has assisted in preventing many offences where offenders were using cycles as thier escape vehicles after committing crime, they are now aware this will no longer be an easy option.

It has also allowed officers to patrol open park areas much more effectively and frequently.

Leamington Town Centre Safer Neighbourhood Team have joined forces with Connexions, YOT, Bath Community Venture, WCVYS and other youth projects to create the Geared Up Project which will be run at Brakes Automotive in Coventry.

The project is aimed at young people who are not in education, employment or training and are potentially at risk of being pulled into anti social behaviour or crime. The group of selected young people will attend a 10 week cause at Brakes Automotive project, which has over 5 years experience and success in running courses for such groups, where they will learn basic mechanics skills, but also social and integration skills, drugs & alcohol awareness, and legal requirments for motoring.

This is a prestigious course, and the 8 young people who have been selected for the first course all feel privilaged to have been selected, there were over 20 young people that were put forward for the course from Warwick District, all of whom requested themselves to be considered. This week the final 8 were chosen and will be comencing the course within the next two weeks.

An analysis report has been commissioned by the Town Centre SNT team in the areas of Anti Social behaviour, Criminal Damage and Crime & Disorder, to compare the last 12 months with the previous 12 months i.e. June 05 – April 06 & June 06 – April 07.

The result of the report displayed excellent reductions in all areas researched and displays the excellent working relationship the Safer Neighbourhood Team have with their partners, local business, licensees and community as a whole.

The joint working of all the groups have produced the below results, and shows how best practice within the town centre under the heading of Safer Neighbourhood is working towards Protecting Our Communities.

The report just covers the area of the Town Safer Neighbourhood, the key findings of the report were as follows:-

On Sunday 1st July Leamington Station will be open to the public from 2pm until 6pm. This is part of the 150 Years of Warwickshire Police Celebrations.

There will be tours of the cells and cell block, numerous crime prevention and advice stalls, police vehicles to view and much more. There will also be an opourtunity to have a small guided tour of the Station to see how the new renovation are progressing towards the new Southern Justice Centre, it has been described as going from "Life on Mars" to the 21st Century.