After a spate of break in and theft since November Frome Chamber of Commerce convened a special meeting of the Retail Group in January, which was hosted by The River House.
We welcomed Sgt Rachel Clark and her team of Frome Neighbourhood Officers, officers from Mendip District Council’s Neighbourhood Services CCTV Team, Tim Fielding from Business Against Crime Partnership (Shopwatch), and Councillors from Frome and Mendip councils.
Neil Howlett from Frome Chamber said: “We’re grateful to the Police and the council for coming to talk with us. Traders have had a hard time in the last few months with damage and theft. It isn’t just the money stolen and the costs of damage done but being woken up in the middle of the night, the disruption to trade.
“There was good news about arrests and detentions of some of the people responsible, and a better understanding of what CCTV and the Police can do, and some of the things they can’t.
“I think we all came away thinking there are things we can do to work better together. We will be organising more meetings to put those into practice.
“Any businesses with premise in the town centre are welcome to contact Frome Chamber for more information. The more we all work together the easier it will be to prevent these problems, or stop them if they happen.”
On a positive note The River House has been running an appeal to replace the money lost by local charities when their three collections boxes were stolen in a burglary. Their customers contributed £480 – probably three times what was lost. So every cloud has a silver lining.