How Neighbourhood Partnerships are working after year one

As Neighbourhood Partnerships get ready to celebrate their first birthday, we take a look behind the scenes to see how they are bringing real solutions to local issues.

Improving quality of life
In the city centre, ‘walkabouts’ – involving the local community, Council and Police – highlighted the issue of advertising boards on pavements.

In response, a series of joint enforcement activities are now in place to cut down on the number of these boards, making pavements as clear, safe and pedestrian friendly as possible.

Results, results, results
Tasking and Co-ordinating groups (TACs) are one of the new ways partners are working together in local neighbourhoods across the city to tackle and prevent crime and antisocial behaviour.

TACs are specially set up to allow partners to share information on local issues and make best use of resources to bring about fast and economical solutions.

One TAC success story is Operation Aura – a recent initiative in the south of the city devised to target the sale of alcohol to young people and the antisocial behaviour that often results from it. Through the local TAC, a range of resources were put in place, including Police spot patrols, mobile CCTV and a bottle marking scheme.

Partner staff made more than 200 visits to off licences to promote responsible retailing.

To date, Operation Aura has resulted in 670 litres of alcohol being confiscated from young people, and in phase four alone, it resulted in:

• a 76 per cent drop in alcohol-related youth calls to the police
• a 21 per cent reduction in minor assaults.

Taking partnerships further
Local Community Plans are now being developed to reflect a partnership approach to local priorities, where working together will achieve better results.

It is vital that local people have an input into Local Community Plans and Neighbourhood Partnerships use a wide variety of approaches, depending on the area, to gather people’s views.

These include hosting open days for all local people, plus outreach visits to ensure everyone in the local area is getting heard.

This summer, the new Neighbourhood Partnership website has been launched. www.edinburghnp.org.uk will provide a range of information, including details of which Neighbourhood Partnership area you’re in, up-to-date meeting information, news and vital statistics for your area.