Jim Parker: Alison Hernandez isn't for quitting but she needs help in Bay crime battle

I have a lot of time for Alison Hernandez.
Now I know some of you will jump straight on the political bandwagon and accuse the ‘Tory-weekly’s Jim Parker of being at it again and backing and praising somebody waving the blue flag.
But you will have to believe me — and quite frankly with some of these people I don’t really care if you do or you don’t — I will always support somebody with a passion for wanting to see the Bay progress and change for a better future for all whether they are waving a blue, red, yellow, green or pink and purple flag and I am willing to work with anybody wearing any of those politically coloured coats as long as they have the benefit of Torbay at the heart of what they are trying to do.
Alison Hernandez is a politician and she is a Conservative, but she has that passion I am talking about and for a girl who was brought up in the tough environment and surroundings of Hele Village, 10 years as the Crime Commissioner for Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly I think the ‘girl done good!’
Perhaps the village was where she learned the importance of community spirit and togetherness because that is what Hele was all about in those days gone by. It looked after its own.
And perhaps that is where Alison Hernandez learned to show some grit and determination and defy the odds to get to where she is today.
She will be the first to admit that sometimes she engages her mouth before her brain but is saying it as it is necessarily a bad thing?
Mrs Hernandez was certainly firing on all cylinders when she was the main guest speaker at the last Torbay Business Forum breakfast at the Riviera International Conference.
She made it clear that she needed lots more support from the business community and other areas of the Bay if she was to tackle crime.
Castle Circus was a particular point in question as she talked of her frustration at trying to reduce crime, drugs taking, drinking, shoplifting and anti-social behaviour in the top half of Torquay town centre.
She emphasised that Torquay was not alone with its problems - Exeter and Plymouth city centres were also high-crime areas. But her focus in the past couple of years has been on Torquay, Castle Circus and that included the problem fairly or unfairly associated with the Factory Row homeless hostel.
She wasn’t surprising anybody listening in the forum that some people, young and old, considered the top half of Union Street a no-go area and when she asked how many shopped in Torquay town centre there wasn’t exactly an overwhelming show of support.
“People are frustrated. I haven’t got all the answers,” she said. “How do we clean up and sort a crime honey pot?”
It hasn’t been for the want of trying. She has led several initiatives to tackle the issues. More officers on the beat, more raids and arrests backed up by different dispersal orders from Torbay Council and safety partnership members — she had particular praise for Tara Harris, the council’s assistant director for community services.
Street Focus was one of her biggest projects where key people and organisations were brought together. ‘Hot spot’ policing was introduced which is what it says. Mrs Hernandez now intends to roll Street Focus across the force area.
Street marshals were introduced and a night bus service launched for late night revellers — Mrs Hernandez has a real issue about safety on trains, especially on the back of recent incidents.
She welcomes the game-changing regeneration schemes lined up for the town but you could sense her frustration with being caught up in red tape when looking at improving the look of listed buildings or even getting a litter bin in the right place.
“There are big aspirations for town centre regeneration and improving the environment, but we want to drive pace. How do we get pace?” she asked.
She compared the quick progress being made with similar initiatives across the Tamar in Camborne.
She said: “We brought people and front line workers together and are making a big difference.”
She said she “started at the bottom and at grass roots” in the Cornish town.
“A lot of the work done was like town council work,” said Mrs Hernandez.
Camborne also has a Business Improvement District representing the interests of 300 businesses in the town. Torbay used to have BIDS covering Torquay, Paignton and Babbacombe and St Marychurch.
The hint was there that perhaps we should look again at a BID, learning lessons from what has gone wrong before.
At the other end of the spectrum, Mrs Hernandez revealed how police and partners had been on a fact-finding mission to London’s bustling Oxford Street to see how they tackled anti-social behaviour, shoplifting and street crime.
She said: “They have high end shoplifting. They work as a team. It really is basic stuff.”
That really reinforced the message she was trying to get across to business people in the room. She needed them to buy into what she was trying to achieve. She is getting there but the journey has not been and is not easy.
She has introduced UKPAC, a crime-reporting and intelligence-sharing platform so that incidents of theft, anti-social behaviour, violence etc can be logged by businesses and processed into evidence packs for police.
The scheme has been launched in Torquay at no cost to businesses. Next year will cost them £20 a month. Take up and interest hasn’t exactly been red hot.
Mrs Hernandez revealed that it has taken the past few months to get 40 businesses in the Bay signed up.
“I was asked to do something similar in Teignmouth and we had nine sign up in a day,” she said.
She emphasised how important it was to report crimes.
“Unless it is reported, the police will not do a lot,” she said.
Torquay’s town centre problems are a long way from being over. Mrs Hernandez talked about organised crime, people being attacked in the street, prolific offenders breaking the law, shoplifting increasing ten-fold and street people being exploited by their own.
As far as Factory Row goes, she talked about housing needs and a lack of move-on accommodation which would take a lot of the vulnerable people off the streets and away from Castle Circus.
She emphasised she “could not fix homeless, addiction and mental health” problems. She just had to make sure police dealt with the “fall-out”.
She said her policing attentions and priorities are having to focus elsewhere and not just on the Bay and Torquay, with officers having to be spread wider afield.
“That is why people have to make an effort and I need your voice,” she told the business leaders.
There was a hint of having to walk away. But I can’t see that.
Like her or loathe her. Blue, red or yellow, Alison Hernandez is determined and won’t give up. She’s not a quitter. Perhaps that’s the Hele Village girl in her.