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Hamilton City Council is expanding the City Safe team to provide a new suburban response team.

The team will be dedicated to dealing with nuisance or anti-social behaviour in Hamilton’s suburbs.

The funding for the one-year trial of the team was agreed by the Council in the 2019-2020 Annual Plan.  It will extend the successful central city service to the suburbs, including Dinsdale, Hillcrest, and Hamilton East.

The suburban response team trial started this week, with five additional staff providing a dedicated seven day a week service, operating 8am to 6pm Sunday to Monday and 8am to 8pm on Tuesday to Saturday.

The aim of the team will be to provide a crime reduction presence in all suburbs of Hamilton and working closely with communities to identify nuisance or anti-social behaviour, which may impact on the community’s sense of safety.

“The new staff come from a variety of backgrounds including police, military and security,” says Paul Blewman, City Safe Operations Manager. “The team speak numerous languages including Chinese, Indian, Philippine and Korean which will be a benefit when working with Hamilton’s multicultural population.”

Catching up with the team after their first week of working in the new role it is clear to see they are enjoying playing an active role improving the safety of Hamiltonian’s in the suburbs.

“This week we have enjoyed speaking to members of the public and businesses to understand concerns they have in their suburbs,” says Theresa, Suburban Response Team officer.

“We want to be able to equip them with tools to address anti-social and nuisance behaviour, so we can make people feel safer in their communities, and more involved.”

The team will be easily identifiable in their City Safe high visibility vests and can be contacted by the phone number (0800 723 324) or through the new quick text option (027 808 8147) to report any nuisance or anti-social behaviour. If a crime is being committed, please phone 111.

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