Chief Inspector David Robertson: Pop-up cop shop for Winter City team countered crime

Chief Inspector David Robertson is the Area Commander for the City Centre. Picture: Jon Savage

Our dedicated Winter City team were on hand to offer reassurance to the public, engage with festive shoppers, revellers and business staff, as well as addressing any issues that arose.

To increase our visibility, we had our mobile command unit located in Castle Street and then were very lucky to take up temporary residence within Waverley Mall at a vacant retail unit.

Our enhanced presence, and targeted approach to deterring certain crime trends, resulted in city centre crime remaining consistent over Christmas and New Year, with no significant rises in any offences.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our partners at City of Edinburgh Council and Waverley Mall for providing us with the space for our command unit and pop-up cop shop. It was very well received by the public and greatly appreciated by Edinburgh Division’s Command Team.

As in previous years, we also ran our Countdown to Christmas calendar, which ran throughout December. I’d also like to thank Inspector David Brady, the other policing teams and our partners who took part to deliver the personal safety and crime prevention messaging.

Now that the holiday season has passed, we do not slow down and planning will soon start in earnest for the Edinburgh International Festival and our annual policing campaign to support it – Operation Summer City.

Before then, however, there are likely to be a range of other events attracting large numbers of people into the Capital and, as always, we will ensure we dedicate suitable resources to these in order to maximise public safety and minimise disruption to the rest of the city.

We’ve spoken before about the advantage of the single force, but the importance of being able to call upon additional and specialist resources to assist local officers when dealing with large events cannot be understated.

Whenever it is required, we will look to colleagues from other areas of Police Scotland to provide specialist assistance.

Away from events in the city centre, officers in the South and East will continue to support the local priorities of their communities through various campaigns and operations, as well as day to day engagement with local residents, businesses and elected members.

We recently encouraged the public to take part in our policing survey and help shape policing in your area. The survey is a really useful way for communities to tell us what they feel needs additional or targeted police attention.

The information obtained from this survey is now being collated to form part of our policing strategy for the coming year.

However, we always welcome continued feedback from our communities and this can take place in many ways, such as speaking with officers at Community Council meetings, attending police surgeries or making an appointment via 101 to discuss specific issues with us.

Chief Inspector David Robertson is the Area Commander for the City Centre.