Police put final touches to derby plans (From Daily Echo)

Police put final touches to derby plans

1:17pm Saturday 6th February 2010 in

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I said I would report back on the work we are doing for the Portsmouth game. Here's a list of just a few of the things we've been up to.

We are still looking at this from the perspective of a major sporting event for the City so our work is about planning for a safe event with the football club and other City organisations.

Of course we are planning for the possible risks too but our focus is on a great day for all the fans of both teams. Some will go away disappointed but I hope all will go home having had a great time in the City.

We are speaking to people in the residential and city centre business communities to discuss their needs and putting in place neighbourhood patrols to give any reassurance required

We've been working with the organisers to make sure the Chinese New Year celebrations planned for the Saturday and Sunday aren't affected by the football game.

Planning the duties and tasks of the 260 or so people involved in the policing operation, (including, very importantly, welfare and refreshments!) is a major task.

Making sure all the teams, including a mounted section from Thames Valley and British Transport Police colleagues and others all communicate and work together effectively, (in large operations for all organisations or businesses it's communications which are so often critical to success).

Working with pubs and clubs to agree how they can operate safely on match day and the Friday and Saturday nights.

Keeping alert to any signs of potential trouble and planning how we deal with any trouble makers including speaking to them beforehand (we know who most of them are) and making the arrangements needed if arrests are made.

Working on media and communications plans so we try and get more information out to people before, during and after the game, including making more use of social networking sites for example.

Organising the police control centre at the stadium and our force command and control room at Netley (lots of people want to be involved and many people have a case for being in the control room but as I well know the police commander needs the control room at the stadium to be very carefully managed!) And that’s just some of it.

Fortunately I have a great team doing this work for me and I hope the fans will see what a good job we have done.