January Recipe Update from Festus Akinbusoye Page 34,35

Recipe of the Month - Cosy Cottage Pie

Serves 4, Free - Ready in 45 minutes

500g Lean beef mince (5% fat or less) 750g mixed casserole veg or casserole veg pack 450ml boiling beef stock 1kg floury potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped 2 leeks, thinly sliced

1.Spray a large non-stick pan with low-calorie cooking spray. Place over a medium heat, add the beef and brown for about 5 minutes, breaking up any lumps with the back of a wooden spoon. Drain off any fat. 2. If you're using a casserole veg pack with whole vegetables, peel and chop the veg. Add the casserole veg to the pan along with the stock. Bring to the boil over a high heat, stirring occasionally, then reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. 3. Meanwhile, cook the potatoes in a saucepan of boiling water over a high heat for 12 minutes or until just tender. Add the leeks and cook for a further 4-5 minutes. Drain well, tip back into the saucepan and leave to stream for a few minutes to drive off any excess moisture. 4. Mash well and season to taste. 5. Uncover the beef, bring to the boil over a high heat and cook for 5 minutes to reduce any liquid to a nice coating consistency Season to taste. Preheat the grill to hot. 6. Tip the beef mixture into a 1.5 litre ovenproof dish, spoon over the mash to cover completely, smooth with a fork. Spray with low-calorie cooking spray and grill for 3-4 minutes or until golden.

Brought to you by Slimming World, Stotfold.

Stotfold Memorial Hall

Tuesday 4pm, 5.30pm & 7pm

Call Dawn on 07515 557803 for further details

Arlesey Village Hall

Wednesday 10am

No booking necessary, just turn up or call Shari on 07737 300372 for further details

Police and Crime Commissioner

Dear Stotfold residents.

Since being elected, I have met with over 100 Town and Parish Councils online, attended four Parish Council meetings, and a Full Council meeting at each of our three local authorities. In addition to my weekly visit to commissioned partners and organisations, I have held six Community Engagement meetings across the county so far and been on patrol duties with our officers.

At a recent Annual Parish Council meeting organised by my office, which was attended by Senior Leadership Team from Bedfordshire Police, I shared the following with councillors:

Community Policing Plan As part of my Police and Crime Plan, priority number one is ‘investment in community-based and community-led policing for rural and urban areas’ . Together, the Chief Constable Garry Forsyth and I are committed to focussing on ‘proactive policing’ . Residents have told me they want to see more of a visible, proactive, problem-solving police presence in our communities. It is therefore my responsibility to hold the Chief Constable accountable for delivering on the people’s policing priorities. In response to this, we have agreed to increase the number of our Community Policing Team in Bedfordshire to:

67 Community Police Officers - 51 PCSOs - 14 Sergeants

The focus will be on the officers being visible, proactive, and dedicated to their local areas. I recognise there is still more to do in tackling speeding, drug dealing and anti-social behaviour. However, I need to ask your help in continuing to provide us with data and activity about crimes. This helps with the deployment of officers.

To report a crime, you can do so by calling 101 or anonymously by contacting Crimestoppers.

We are also now recruiting for Community Special Constables. These are volunteer police officers who will be trained and deployed to carry out policing duties in their local area.

Police and Crime Commissioner Festus Akinbusoye

ARLESEY PHARMACY

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Festus Akinbusoye

Early intervention and prevention

A big focus of mine is early intervention. One of my campaign pledges was to roll out ‘Out of Court Disposal Orders’ which allow officers to refer low risk, persistent offenders to local support services.

What this means is, we keep persistent offenders outside of the criminal justice system while referring them to support services to deal with issues such as drug and alcohol addiction as a condition of the order. Since launching this, I am pleased to say 100% of those referred so far have not re-offended since the scheme started. This frees up police time, saves tax-payers money and reduces repeat victimisation of our residents. I’ve also been spending lots of time at schools across the county and have weekly visits in my diary. I believe it is important for young people to have a positive understanding about policing and know that they have power to make positive choices.

Due to recent covid guidelines from Local Authorities, we have postponed our inaugural Bedfordshire-wide schools debating competition to early 2022. The competition is for 15–18-year-olds. This will create opportunities for developing confidence, critical thinking, and life skills. Plans are also well under way for the Summer of Fun 2022 initiative which is part of investing in early intervention programmes to safeguard our young people, encourage healthy choices and improve self-esteem. I am also investing money to tackle domestic abuse and sexual violence by focussing on perpetrators, while changing the narrative from advising victims on personal safety.

Force Control room I am working with the Force to invest in the effectiveness of the Force Control Room. They are the first point of contact along with the Community Policing team. We’ve recruited nine new members recently with almost 20 police officers providing expert support. By April 2022 we will be above our establishment level for the first time in several years. I will be reviewing this towards the end of the financial year to see what more can be done to improve retention and quality of service to the public.

Speed Watch volunteers Our speed watch team is currently looking for more volunteers. Speed Watch is a fantastic, educational scheme aimed at raising awareness of speed restrictions and road safety. Those captured speeding receive a warning letter from Bedfordshire Police and persistent offenders’ details are passed to our local policing team for further action. If you’re interested, you can email WatchSchemes@bedfordshire.pnn.police.uk

I remain optimistic about the future of Bedfordshire Police and our plans to cut crime, prevent harm, and protect victims. Our concerted effort on tackling crime as well as its root causes will pay off.

As ever, if you’d like to get in touch, you can contact my office by calling 01234 842064 or by emailing pcc@bedfordshire.pnn.police.uk Wishing you all a safe and prosperous New Year.

Festus Akinbusoye Police and Crime Commissioner – Bedfordshire

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Down Memory Lane

Do you recognise anyone in the picture?

This picture of St Mary’s school back to 1975..

If you have any photographs that we are able to use for this section of the magazine each month we would LOVE to hear from you...

Please get in touch by calling us on 01462 731986 or emailing stotfold.news@yahoo.co.uk

ANSWERS to Old and New quiz on page 23

1 NEW ORLEANS; 2 Isaac NEWTON; 3 Cats; 4 The NEW Seekers; 5 Spiro AGNEW; 6 Edinburgh; 7 NEWBURY; 8 Gary OLDMAN; 9 NOVA (Latin meaning new); 10 NEW DEAL; 11 The OLD Curiosity Shop; 12 Huey Lewis; 13 OLD VIC; 14 Christian Dior; 15 NEWNHAM; 16 OLDSMOBILE; 17 NEWT; 18 Aldous Huxley; 19 This Old House / This Ole House (hit for Rosemary Clooney and Shakin’ Stevens); 20 Thomas NEWCOMEN

For more fascinating facts and to download and read my novels, completely free of charge,please visit my website at davidstedman.co.uk or Google david stedman author. 36

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Complete garden design and build service Porcelain and sandstone paving specialists Quality block paving driveways & all types of fencing

For a FREE quotation call Robin on (01462) 815968 or 07785 530558 www.thegardenrobin.co.uk