Welcome from your Safer Neighbourhood Team. Derbyshire Constabulary and its partners are committed to making your community safer and helping you to feel more secure. We aim to tackle your concerns and provide lasting solutions. To achieve this, we need your help to make our work in the community more focused and effective. The “Safer Neighbourhoods” agenda is about providing local areas with dedicated teams of police officers, police community support officers, special constables, local authority officers and your own community representatives.

Our beat officers have now been at Creswell for over a year and during this time they have developed important community contacts with residents and local business owners alike. This has helped build a good understanding of the community and the issues that affect it.  Over the last few months the team have worked closely with youth groups, organising and taking part in numerous distraction activities with young people from the village. These have ranged from abseiling, cycling & paintballing to youth club events.

Derbyshire Police are continuing to support these activities and both Grant & Andy have recently completed a Sports Leaders course, enabling them to organise & supervise sporting activities. The team are committed to patrolling their dedicated beats and this is endorsed by Derbyshire Police zero abstraction policy. This has allowed Grant & Andy to spend more time on the beat and in the community.

The next project the team are addressing is letting the local residents identify the issues that affect their community and matter the most to them. We aim to do this by establishing quarterly Community Forums, where residents will be invited to attend and highlight there concerns. These will then be monitored and acted upon via a ‘Problem Profile’. Further to this, you can find your beat team at Limestone House on Elmton Road between 11am and 1pm every 3 rd Wednesday of the month. We would like to thank all the residents of Creswell for their continued support & anyone wishing to get involved in their community via Neighbourhood Watch please contact Grant or Andy.

07/11/08 - CRESWELL DRUGS DEN CLOSED DOWN - Residents in Creswell have breathed a huge sigh of relief this week after a drugs den in the village was closed down. Worksop County Court granted Bolsover District Council an outright possession order against Council tenant Anthony Joseph Mallen of 68a Rogers Avenue, Creswell. Mr Mallen shared the property with Andrea Pledger who along with Carol Freda Whitehead was convicted of drugs offences earlier in the year. The possession order was granted as the conviction of drugs offences is a direct breach of the Councils Tenancy Agreement. In August 2006, the Police raided the property and found drugs including heroin, cannabis and various items of drugs paraphernalia. During the trial the jury heard evidence of recordings from two mobile phones, evidencing drug dealing and also heard an explanation from a drugs expert to the meaning and content of some of the recorded messages. Sixty-year old Carol Freda Whitehead was sentenced to three years and nine months custody for her involvement and at a later date, Andrea Pledger was found guilty of drugs offences and given a 52 week suspended prison sentence with and 18 month Supervision Order and a twelve month drug rehabilitation programme. The Council, together with its partners, recognised that the activities of the household had caused considerable distress to neighbours and the surrounding community and following the convictions for drug offences the case could continue by obtaining the outright possession order against the property. Bolsover District Council Cabinet Member for Community Safety, Councillor Brian Murray-Carr said, "This is excellent news for Creswell and its residents. Once we had secured the drugs convictions it was only a matter of time before we could gain possession of the property. We realise that these problems have been going on for some time, but it is a lengthy process to gather evidence, secure a conviction and possession order of the property. "We fully appreciate the tolerance of those people who lived particularly close to this area and are grateful for the co-operation of every one and hopefully they can now get back to living in a safe and pleasant area. The message is simple and clear to tenants - Bolsover District Council will not tolerate this type of behaviour and we will take very strong action against anyone."