There are now almost 30 businesses in Westbury who have signed up to the national ‘Safe Places’ scheme.
These premises include businesses in Edward Street, Haynes Road, High Street, Maristow Street, the Market Place and Warminster Road.
The BA13+ Partnership, which is administering the scheme in Westbury, is speaking to local groups and organisations to raise awareness of Safe Places and how anyone in the community who is feeling unwell, uncertain, lost, confused or in need of support can make use of it.
In Wiltshire, Safe Places has received funding from the Wiltshire Police Commissioner with oversight from the Wiltshire Community Safety Partnership.
Phil McMullen the BA13+ Partnership administrator said, “This came to one of the BA13 Community Area Partnership meetings last year and we volunteered to roll this out in Westbury alongside the area board. Susie Morgans was our mentor and provided us with all the information packs to sign people up to. Once the steering group met, we quickly organised ourselves to visit all the shops, starting in the High Street. Two Warminster PCSOs (police community support officers) came with us, so they could learn about the scheme too.
“Whilst this scheme isn’t practical for all shops and services to initiate, all the Westbury shops visited have experience of dealing with the odd emergency or have provided information and advice to people in need. It’s just that those who have signed up to the scheme and now have the Safe Places logo in their window will be able to provide a standard response to anyone who needs to make use of this service.
“The BA13 Community Area Partnership will be maintaining this scheme, collecting the feedback forms and feeding the scheme’s usage back to the Wiltshire Community Safety Partnership four times a year on behalf of the area board, as we work together on quite a few community projects.
“We are now going out and about in our town and villages in the BA13 area to give out leaflets and ICE (In Case of Emergency) cards to interested groups.”
If you would like a visit, please contact Phil McMullen at BA13plus@outlook.com
