POLICE are urging Wyre Forest residents to sign up to a new online platform to keep them in the loop about local crimes.

Neighbourhood Matters, a community messaging tool, alerts residents to specific crimes happening in their area via West Mercia Police officers.

Residents can receive alerts on crimes, latest information on on-going incidents in a personalised way by selecting issues they are interested in hearing about on the platform.

Officers, including Chief Constable Pippa Mills, were outside Sainsbury's in Kidderminster earlier encouraging residents to sign up.

Chief Constable Mills said: “It’s really important that the public have confidence that their local police understand what their issues are, that they know we are acting on those.

“Neighbourhood Matters gives us a really good platform to tell them what we’ve been doing and how we’ve been responding and it’s really important the public know we are there for them when they need us and they’re saying what they’re worried about.”

The service is not for reporting crimes, and residents are asked to make a report via the West Mercia Police website, or call 999 in an emergency.

Chief constable Mills added: “It’s my two month anniversary in the force tomorrow and I’ve been really pleased coming in as the new chief constable to find really high levels of public confidence in the police.

“I think there’s more we can do and there’s more I’d like my officers to do.

“Earlier on in the year we launched the local policing community charter which sets out exactly what the public can expect from their local teams and sets out to my officers and staff the commitments we’ve made to the public.

“For me, Neighbourhood Matters just enhances that and builds those connections even more strongly.

“It’s an easy and intuitive way for people to keep in contact with us.”

People can sign up to the platform via neighbourhoodmatters.co.uk