I WRITE to add my concerns after reading the letter from Mr Myatt on your page regarding the scrapping of our excellent Community Safety Department by the present District Council.
On Friday, April 18 I visited the theatre with a friend to see the evening performance of Single Spies - we set out early to enable us to park on the car park in Grange Road - giving us an hour to relax with a coffee. As we walked to the entrance we were surprised at how many vehicles were parked on the double yellow lines all the way along the road including two large coaches parked nose to tail and completely blocking the dropping off area. The crowd in side the building was huge but abated when the Forum opened its doors; just as we thought were moving into the theatre the fire alarm stated and we were ushered up the steps and out through the front entrance! The staff did an excellent job and even managed to persuade some of the more lively patrons to take their lives in their hands and dash blindly out across the road to get onto the pavement the other side, with the coaches still parked up and completely blocking the view of any traffic coming from the right.
When the Fire Brigade arrived it was impossible to pull up anywhere near the building so after dropping two of the crew members off to run down the slip road in through the front entrance, the appliance had to drive on along the road to park. Luckily it turned out to be a false alarm and after being outside for about 20 minutes we were allowed in and took our seats.
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At no time during the evening did we see a policeman so the following Monday I tried to ring what is laughingly called Your Local Policing Team at Malvern Police Station only to find that I was not allowed to speak to anyone at Malvern and had to leave the details with an operator at Worcester Police Station instead and when I voiced my complaint concerning the problems caused through illegal parking and how very dangerous the situation could have become, he advised me to ring the Council! I was very taken aback at this but I did ring the Hub and, of course, received the answer I was expecting i.e. it is illegal to park on double yellow lines and the police can take action.
I think that it is shameful that a third of our Council Tax goes to policing in our community and yet we have no police presence in the centre of the town on a Friday night, we are not allowed to speak on the phone to our local police team based at our own police station, and now our unworthy Council has scrapped the very important Community Safety Department which really was a very local port of call for local tax payers.
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