Farming community comes together for Third Blenheim Palace Rural Crime Conference
Over 70 farmers attended last week’s Rural Crime Conference at Blenheim Palace, organised in conjunction with Thames Valley Police, to discuss a range of relevant subjects, including crime prevention, business planning, and mental health.
The event also featured a wide range of stalls from organisations including the NFU; Datatag; ATVTrac; Thames Valley Police; Neighborhood Watch; and Rural Technology.
Now in its third year, the event saw the farming community meet at the Stables Café to enjoy a delicious hog roast followed by a series of engaging speakers, including:
- Mark Thomas from The Farming Community Network, a charity to support farmers and their families. Mark discussed the importance of mental health in the farming community and addressed issues such as loneliness, lack of support, and isolation, as well as impact of the recent budget on the mental health of farmers.
- Insp Stuart ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson and Insp Chris Ball from Thames Valley Police discussed activities of the Rural Crime Taskforce, which is the rural taskforce largest in the Country. He stressed the importance of reporting all crimes to police so they can respond, hotspots for rural crime and types of crime such as hare coursing and vehicle theft.
- Tim Field from The North Cotswold Farming Network spoke about local production and landscape recovery.
Merilyn Davies, Community Lead at Blenheim, commented: “This event goes from strength to strength; it’s fantastic to see the farming community come together and share knowledge and experiences to help one another.”
ENDS
Issued on behalf of Blenheim Community. For more information please contact Jon Perks at Cab Campaign – estate@cabcampaign.co.uk
About Blenheim Community
Blenheim recognises it has a huge impact on the local communities that surround it and that we are intimately linked to them.
Our aim is to be the lifeblood of the local economy and to enhance the lives of local people. We aim by 2027 to have doubled our charitable contributions to the community, train over 100 apprentices, treble our contribution to the local economy and provide 300 affordable homes.
But we want to go further and dedicate time and effort into supporting local community needs and to bring the voice of local people into the heart of everything we do.
We want to be able to share our magnificent resources with the local community, give schools greater access to our facilities, work with community groups to support their work, promote local businesses, sports groups, charities, and so much more.
We want to listen to what communities need and work with them to make it happen. Through promoting active travel and interconnectivity between the villages that surround us, whether by opening up more pathways between them, or promoting events and businesses, we want to help promote a vibrant and hyper local economy that benefits all.
