Police promise action on parking in Chatteris hotspots

Members of the local police team have promised to act on speeding and parking hotspots in Chatteris – when they have the time.

Two members of the March Neighbourhood Policing Team attended last night’s town council meeting to give an update on police activity in Chatteris and to hear concerns from councillors.

The officers, PC Chad Hall and PC Zoe Pell explained they were the only ones responsible for policing in the town and as a result were quite stretched, especially as they often got called away to incidents.

However, they told councillors they were working hard and had already enforced four closure orders at addresses in the town related to drugs.

Councillors raised the issue of parking in the town, particularly along High Street where Cllr Pete Murphy said people parked wherever they wanted including on top of speed humps.

Cllr Linda Ashley added that New Road was also bad, especially at school times.

PC Hall said the problem they have is that if they are called to deal with for instance a domestic violence incident then that is time away from their other duties.

But he agreed that issues like parking and speeding were on their radar and they would do their best to act when they had the time.

Mud on the roads was also raised by councillors and PC Pell said they did try to act wherever possible and would prosecute those responsible.

However, PC Hall said officers have to physically witness the vehicle responsible for dropping the mud to ensure a conviction was possible.

He said: “The problem is we cannot deal with an offence retrospectively, we have to witness it otherwise it can be hard to prove who was responsible. It could be any Tom, Dick or Harry.”

PC Pell added: “We can offer words of advice to those where it has previously happened but it is difficult to attend every incident.”