GIVEN recent events in Boscombe and elsewhere in Bournemouth, I should like to comment on what the Council is doing about them for residents.

Any violent crime has obvious repercussions within our communities and Bournemouth has suffered a really unusual spate of incidents over the last few weeks. Our thoughts go out to the families of the victims of these awful crimes.

However, in each of these cases, they appear to be isolated incidents where victims and attackers were known to each other.

From the information received, there do not appear to be grounds for concern for the safety of the wider community. Despite these crimes, Bournemouth remains a relatively safe place to live, with incidents of the most serious violent crimes reducing by 7 per cent between 2010/11 and 11/12.

In terms of regeneration work in the local community, the Council remains totally committed to dealing with the issues by working with the Police and other agencies. In the past week the Chief Executive and I have met with the Chief Constable to share our concerns and we have been reassured about the focus and resources being deployed by the Police to deal with the issues that are of greatest concern to the public.

Together with the Member of Parliament for Bournemouth East, Tobias Ellwood, we shall be taking a fresh look at our priorities in Boscombe to see whether there are any further issues that require input from government to help us in this work. We are of course continuing to work very closely with the local councillors for Boscombe West who understand the concerns of local residents better than most and who are totally committed to finding solutions and outcomes which will make a lasting difference to the area and its residents.

CLLR JOHN BEESLEY, Leader of the Council, Bournemouth Council