LANGUAGE barriers are preventing some city residents from reporting crimes and accessing police services, a councillor has said.

Warndon councillor Ed Kimberley said people who don’t speak English as a first language often struggle to get officers to follow up on their concerns.

West Mercia Police says its officers have access to interpreters via a mobile app called Language Line and are working on other ways to improve community relations.

Cllr Kimberley was speaking in a Communities committee meeting at the Guildhall on Wednesday (July 24).

QUESTIONS: City councillor Ed KimberleyQUESTIONS: City councillor Ed Kimberley (Image: Ed Kimberley)

He said Warndon has a large minority community, with “a patchwork of different groups who live in a particular couple of corners of the ward”.

“It’s been our experience that these areas have been disproportionately affected by crime in various ways,” he said.

“One of the big concerns that I’ve got after a month or two of getting to know them and getting to understand the problem is there are quite a lot of barriers between the communities, particularly people who don’t speak English as a first language and actually accessing police services.

“A lot of them, if they don’t speak English as a first language, and they’re being asked to put in reports to the police in written form, and a lot of the systems seem to be geared towards that, it is significantly more difficult for them to do so.

“My experience has been that the things that get followed up are the things that people can chase up a couple of times, which excludes groups like that.

“What steps is West Mercia taking to improve [the] quality of access for all different communities in our city to access police services?”

Superintendent Gareth Morgan, the policing commander for south Worcestershire, said: “When officers come across a situation they do have ways and means to utilise things such as Language Line in order to facilitate that communication there and then, and deal with the matter appropriately.

“I’m confident most of the officers understand how to utilise that service - it’s used all the time in the police stations and the custody blocks. But now officers can use that on their mobile phones out on the streets to facilitate those communications.

“So I’m hoping to develop what that picture looks like and also work with yourself and work with those members of the community to enhance how we work with them.”