Obs CPF slowly finding their feet with new chair

Things are looking up for the Observatory community policing forum (CPF), who in the past three months instituted a formal community complaints channel and created and submitted a formal community safety plan.

This after years of the Obs sub-forum of the CPF being almost non-existent and poorly supported. But now, under the chairmanship of Graham Porter, the Obs CPF has made every effort to strengthen relationships at SAPS Woodstock, improve the process and protocols, and ensure that Obs has efficient representation at the station's joint planning meeting weekly.

So what is CPF and what does it actually do?

What most people don't know, is that the CPF is actually the umbrella body for all the other structures under or requiring the services of the local SAPS Precinct. In this case, SAPS Woodstock.

The Community Police Forum is the official, legally mandated body, representing the interests of the community to the SA Police Service. It serves as both a supporting organisation, as well as an oversight body to the police station. For the SAPS Woodstock precinct area, their are 4 sub-forums - Observatory, Woodstock, Upper Woodstock & Walmer Estate and Salt River.

The CPF uses all of the existing communication channels including Whatsapp groups, Facebook page, Obs Neighbourhood Watch (ONW) radios, Google email groups and ONW & OBSID websites, to ensure that the Sector 1 CPF body is proactive to crime trends,. They use the OBSID security services, ONW Patrollers and the Sector policing officers available to Obs.

As part of crime prevention, the first LPR (license plate recognition) camera has recently been installed as a trial to verify the effectiveness of this technology.

If successful, it will be rolled out to cover all the entrance and exit points of the entire sector area.

One of the challenges the CPF faces is that Obs is still without a Sector Manager to replace Const. Mark Berry, who was promoted to Detective in May last year, and a Dedicated Liquor officer.

The Sector Manager is a vital link between the community, its own public safety teams, and the SAPS officers in Obs. The Dedicated Officer for Liquor, deals with liquor licence applications, extensions and renewals, as well as infringements for the 53 or so outlets across Obs.

The importance of liquor license oversight was evident when the community failed to have a proper SAPS evidence documentation to support the opposition to an extension in trading hours for Stones in March.

No DLO also led to no opposition for a new business licence in the crime and drug hotspot in Lower Main Road, this in October.

The Obs CPF has offered assistance in recruiting sector managers, sharing of crime intelligence and incident information, shared radio and Whatsapp communication channels and has dedicated suburb resources, both volunteer and paid, to assist with planning and resource allocation at the station.

But despite making a strong case with the management of the station and the CPF structure at Woodstock, there are still resource issues, lack of respect for volunteers, non-attendance at meetings that have been previously committed to, and no feedback of information on queries and complaints.

In a last ditch attempt to get co-operation, the CPF has escalated the situation to higher levels of authority.

The CPF urges all residents to join or get involved in some way.

"We need all the helping hands we can get, even if only for an hour a week, even an hour a month. We have learned that if we become involved, we can improve the crime, the social needs, and the everyday quality of life, of each and every one of us in our beloved Obs."