Coppers go green in Hereford

Hereford’s South Wye Safer Neighbourhood Team recently applied to the Herefordshire Council ‘TravelFund’ grant that encourages organisations to get on your bikes and go ‘green’ when travelling around the city.

Part of the SNTs role is for the officers and community support officers to be visible and engage with the community. Using bicycles around some of the urban areas will help our officers engage with, and increase their visibility within the community.

The officers will take advantage of the many great cycle paths and networks in Hereford such as the Rotherwas, Bishop Meadows and the Greenway.

In addition to visibility it is also helping the environment by lessoning the number of cars on the road in Hereford. The five bicycles purchased have already started being used around the area and our officers are feeling the benefit of members of the community stopping them to talk without the barriers of a police car or station.

Being able to access parks and areas that cars can’t access means that we will have more police presence in places such as parks. We hope this increased presence will help with our continued targeting of county lines drug gangs, increasingly making it uninviting and demonstrating that we are out on patrol.

Safer Neighbourhood Inspector, Greg Tudge said: “I’m so pleased that Herefordshire council have provided us with this grant for the push bikes. Safer Neighbourhood Officer Jim Phillips applied for this grant as he and the team truly believe this will benefit the local area and increase the engagement and visibility.”

“Bicycles are an excellent way to effectively police an urban area and the reduced impact on the environment and local congestion is also extremely positive. We want to continue to ensure that Herefordshire is a safe place to live, work and socialise.”

Ben Boswell, Energy & Active Travel Manager, said: “We’re delighted to have awarded West Mercia police a TravelFund grant and it’s great to see the bikes out in action. This is the third year of our successful TravelFund grant scheme, funded by the Department for Transport, which offers funding for facilities to support sustainable travel to work, and to help reduce business mileage.

Over the last 3 years we have awarded over 40 grants to Herefordshire businesses for equipment ranging from electric pool bikes, cycle shelters to video conferencing facilities. For more information on the Travel Fund grant scheme please email move@herefordshire.gov.uk”