Welcome to Sandwell Local Policing Unit

Residents can follow the footsteps of beat bobbies next week thanks to a pilot Track-a-Cop scheme allowing people to monitor local officers' movements.

In what’s believed to be a UK first, West Midlands Police will hook up PCs from Sandwell’s Tipton Neighbourhood Team to a GPS system which allows the public to keep tabs on their patrol route and community work.

Using a smartphone application the team will regularly upload route maps to their twitter feed – @TiptonGreenNPT – meaning for the first time ever residents will be able to see exactly where officers have been on the beat.

Track-a-cop is the brainchild of the team’s Sergeant, Dave Rogers, who came up with the idea after residents told him they rarely see officers in their street.

Tipton Green Neighbourhood Team’s PC John Tranter will be tracked over a four-day period starting on Tuesday (28 May).

Accompanied by colleague Emma Harris, officers will tweet maps of their route every few hours and the entire ‘tour of duty’ at the end of their shift where it will be accompanied by photos of the work they’ve been involved in during the day.

You can track PC John Tranter between Tuesday 28 May and Friday 31 May by following the team on Twitter @TiptonGreenNPT or use #trackacop

Live tracking of the team is not available and all maps will be uploaded to the twitter feed at two hour intervals and at the end of the officer’s shift.

For operational purposes the neighbourhood will contain other officers, whose beat is not being tracked, allowing them to take on any possible covert work needed.

Click here to view the Sandwell Police Official Facebook page.

Your Area

Please use the map below to view the area that the Sandwell Local Policing Unit covers. The LPU is broken down into a number of neighbourhoods, click on an area of the highlighted map to see which neighbourhood is located at that point:

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