COMMUNITY SCHEME CELEBRATES A SUCCESSFUL START

DAVID Wilson Homes North West is giving community groups in Southport the chance to take advantage of free funding and resources, following the successful launch of its exciting Our Space, Your Place initiative.  The scheme, which launched at the end of 2010, offers a dedicated fund from which community groups in the area can apply for a contribution to support a project they are currently involved in.  Graham Swann, managing director at David Wilson Homes North West, explains:- “In today’s society it is more important than ever that we work together to help improve the communities in which we live, which is why we created Our Space, Your Place. The scheme not only offers to support local groups via funding, but organisations can also apply for resource for their project in the form of volunteers from our team.  We have already received a fantastic response from people in the region and are delighted to have already been able to help lots of groups in the North West, such as the West Warrington Partnership and The Children’s Adventure Farm Trust. We encourage any organisations that are looking for support to get in touch now and find out how we can help them.”  Our Space, Your Place offers contributions from £100 to £1000, the only condition is that the funding is used for something that will genuinely enhance or improve a service, facilities or the environment within their local area.  For an application form visit:- ourspaceyourplace.co.uk or for further information on David Wilson Homes North West visit:- dwh.co.uk.

BBC3’s ‘Young, Dumb & Living Off Mum’ is back and now casting for a new series!

THE BBC 3 program is carrying out a massive nationwide search for 8 young people between the ages of 17 to 26 with outgoing personalities, who are up for a challenge. "We are looking for both males and females who feel they would be right for this. The people we find should still live at home, have parents who will do almost anything for them and might be described as pampered.  We currently have teams out casting across Britain.  We will be visiting LIVERPOOL on FRIDAY, 4 FEBRUARY 2011 and SATURDAY, 5 FEBRUARY 2011 and would love to hear from anyone who might be interested in finding out more.  Please don’t hesitate to contact us on 020 7749 2981, call/text 07790 378 555 or via email." said the production team.

NEW FAKE EMAIL WARNING

YEP, each week we get some odd phishing emails, but this one stood out. This email when you reply to it goes to a hotmail account:- "simondonn1@hotmail.com". The original message is sent from:- "Gayheart Edem" email address:- "gayhearrttt@att.net". The recipient list is not shown and the subject/title of the email is:- "GET BACK TO ME URGENTLY" We got this email on Tuesday, 1 February 2011 at around 2:00pm GMT. It is a criminally fraudulent attempt at acquire sensitive information such as usernames... the email reads:- "Good Day. Can you confirm if you are still using this email address? There is an urgent information I have for you. My Name is Mr. Gayheart Edem, I work with Barclays Bank. I do not know if I am talking to the right person, But I will like you to confirm if you are the owner of this email ID. Already I have your name and details in our file in the office, all I want is a confirmation from you that I am communicating with the right owner of this email. I will furnish you with the information that I have for you, When I am convinced I am talking to the right person. I am taking this preventive measure because I do not want to talk to the wrong person because of the sensitivity of the information regarding the issue. Looking forward to your response. Gayheart Edem"

Neighbouring City has "the most crime ridden location in England and Wales"

THE new police.uk website was launched on 1 February 2011, having cost £300,000 to develop. It is meant to be designed in a way that lets the public find out about how the police force are tackling the problems, street level crime and policing, in their own area. Users of the system are asked to put in the appropriate postcode, town, village or street. The site then links up to Google Maps showing street level data and are displayed as a crime map, as well as details of local policing teams and "beat meetings." Street level crime information shown on the maps, according to the Home Office website is logged as:- "total crime, burglary, robbery, vehicle crime, violence, antisocial behaviour and also as 'other crime'." The press statement on the Home Office site also says:- "Publishing Crime and Local Policing Information on national maps provides a greater level of transparency about what crimes happen, where and when. This is the first phase in a longer programme, which could see other crime and justice information (like court progress and convictions) being published alongside the maps." This is meant to provide helpful information about crime, but already it has produced problems, due to the way data is collected. With glitches like Sussex Police, who found hoax calls, which were recorded on site made the figures higher because there was no alternative location to put them. Also just up the road from Southport is the most "Crime Ridden" place in England and Wales and no it is not Liverpool, nor is it Manchester, but in fact in Preston! Glovers Court, in the City Centre has been branded with the title on the new website. This quiet street in Preston was recorded to have 150 offences in December, but in reality Lancashire Police say these crimes were actually committed across the whole of City Centre! The problems are down to the way the figures are recorded and logged by postcode. In an interview with the BBC, Chief Superintendent James Lee said, that only 3 crimes have been reported at Glovers Court and that the:- "The figures don't do it justice. The fact is that all crime was actually down 4.5% during the month of December in Preston City Centre. Also this road is actually a safe place to be, yet these figures do not show that." It did not stop at that. Portsmouth has also had problems and labelled the map as "crackers" after being branded one of the most crime-ridden in the country. Southport's and Liverpool's figures are also strange at times so we contacted the Home Office press office who told us that:- "Errors have been recorded with the system and are isolated issues. We have asked police forces not to be very accurate with the display of the figures, so as not to identify victims of crime. To find out how the figures are collected in your area, you have to contact Merseyside Police." The worry now is that with each police force having a different way of collecting the data, the results is not really of any help to the public. This lack of consistency in data recording, in our view, makes the figures worthless. Already confidence in Home Office figures is at an all time low, but the discrepancies with data and the fact the site has been launched with no common standard of data collection , is very worrying and misleading. Already residents and businesses within the areas identified are worried that property prices will fall and insurance companies will increase premiums for those areas. On the back of that the Home Secretary, Theresa May, has publicly denied that making such detailed information available would drive down property prices in particular areas, and that, in the views of many, this proves the concerns being addressed. The criticism of this service started before day one of the sites active life, and worse was to come on its very first day, 'live', Tuesday, 1 February 2011. The site left millions of prospective viewers frustrated as it crashed within hours of being launched. The Home Office announced mid-day that it had "temporary problems" with the new website, due to "extremely high demand". Attracting 300,000 hits a minute, on the first day made the new crime-mapping website the most popular UK Government website to date. But as many are now asking, will this website, which has already been so heavily accessed just leave users perplexed?  Email us your views to our newsroom via:- news24@southportreporter.com.