Barrow police team up with community partners to host Twitter ‘takeover’ day

Police in Barrow are teaming up with colleagues from emergency services and other partner agencies to launch a 24 hour ‘Twitter Takeover’ this weekend.

Throughout Saturday 27 October, representatives from Barrow police, Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service, the Ambulance Service, the Air Ambulance, NHS and Bay Search and Rescue will tweet about a selection of the call outs they deal with to give the community an insight into the work that goes on around the clock to keep them safe.

The event will run for 24 hours between 7am on Saturday 27 October and 7am on Sunday 28 October and will be used to engage with the community and distribute key safety advice.

A multiagency web chat will also take place where the local community can log on and direct questions to the team.

Cumbria Constabulary Inspector, Mike O’Hagan, who is in charge of the policing team in Barrow said “The whole aim of this event is to raise awareness of the diverse and complex role of the emergency services in Barrow.

“We hope to highlight the volume of emergency and non-emergency calls that we, and our partners deal with on a daily basis, to help keep local communities safe.

“Our Twitter account, @barrowpolice, now has over 2,900 followers and by publishing basic information about our activity over a 24 hour period, we hope to encourage more local people to log onto Twitter to see what work goes on around the clock.

“We will use the event to provide relevant crime prevention advice to communities and would encourage as many people as possible to log onto a web chat that will take place between 5pm and 7pm on Saturday where representatives from the Health service, Fire and Rescue and Police will be available to respond to any questions the public may have.

“This is the first time that we have done an event of this nature in Barrow and we hope that the local community supports us by following us on Twitter and take the opportunity to speak directly to local agencies via the web chat – without having to leave the comfort of their homes.”

Stuart Dolan, Barrow Station Manager for Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service, said “We’re always looking at new ways to engage with our local community and Twitter is becoming increasingly popular.

“Taking part in this ‘Twitter Takeover’ is a good way for us to give people a flavour of some of the incidents we attend and the type of work we get involved in.

"On Saturday morning the @barrowfire Twitter account will go live, and we will use this account to tweet out our messages and information. The aim is to get as many followers as possible so that our key safety messages can be seen and shared with all of the community.”

The agencies participating in the event will use #barrow999 as part of any Twitter posts during the period. To log onto the web chat, go to: www.cumbria.police.uk/barrow.