Reporting COVID related incidents

Over the last week we have again had a large number of incidents reported to us on the Alcester South area from members of the public who are concerned that the government guidelines are not being followed. This relates to a number of circumstances, for example,  people gathering in parks and open spaces, dwellings having visitors or parties for non-family members, non-essential businesses serving the general public and people travelling for non-essential purposes. Members of the Alcester South SNT and local Patrol Officers will continue to attend and monitor these calls when possible, dealing with any infringements appropriately. We do not monitor the local social media sites, so please contact us direct before posting.

We understand people may be worried and seeking advice and information. We’d like to assure you that we are working to keep you safe, we are still responding to emergency and high priority calls. We’d urge you, if it’s not an emergency or urgent, to use our online services instead of calling 101. The online form for reported COVID related incidents can be accessed here – https://www.warwickshire.police.uk/tua/tell-us-about/c19/tell-us-about-possible-breach-coronavirus-measures/

To help us keep our resources focused where they are most needed, we’re asking everyone to please follow the ‘stay at home’ measures set out by the government, and use our online services where possible.

You should only leave the house for one of four reasons:

• •shopping for basic necessities, for example food and medicine, which must be as infrequent as possible
• •going out for one form of exercise a day, for example a run, walk, or cycle – alone or with members of your household – once a day
• •any medical need, or to provide care or to help a vulnerable person
• •travelling only where essential – which includes to and from work, if you’re unable to work from home

These four reasons are exceptions – even when doing these things, you should be minimising time spent outside of the home and ensuring you are two metres apart from anyone outside of your household and washing your hands when you return home. We understand it can be difficult to know what to do, or not do; this situation does need all of us to take a moment and think about what we’re doing and to assess the potential risk. This is a virus that spreads by human physical contact. It’s sensible to do everything you can to minimise the amount of physical contact that you have with other people. We appreciate that the vast majority of people are following the stay at home measures and we’re very grateful to them for doing so. We’d encourage you to continue to follow the measures; we are patrolling and advising people if we see them doing things which are contrary to the government advice. Enforcement is a last resort for us and we’d prefer to work with the public to resolve situations through clear communication and explaining why they might want to behave differently first.