News story

Project Servator goes live at Heysham – trust your instincts

CNC Heysham Operational Policing Unit (OPU) has launched Project Servator yesterday (3/3) – an innovative and collaborative community approach to policing.

Project Servator launch

Project Servator tactics are used by 23 UK police forces and New South Wales Police Force in Australia. They have been developed to enhance the effectiveness of our resources and not as a response to any change in threat and will see highly visible yet unpredictable deployments of specially trained officers around the Heysham site and the surrounding community.

The operational deployments involve officers working together with our communities to report suspicious activity. These officers are deployed to disrupt hostile reconnaissance – the information-gathering terrorists and other criminals need to do to plan their activity - and provide reassurance to members of the public.

The CNC has been using Project Servator tactics for a number of years and the project is now rolling out across all other sites in the CNC. As well as specially trained officers, other operational tactics are used including CCTV, ANPR where appropriate and other covert surveillance methods.

CNC lead for Project Servator, Supt Donna Jones, said: “In becoming the latest CNC site to start using Project Servator tactics, our specially trained officers at Heysham will be better placed to recognise the signs of people carrying out hostile reconnaissance or planning criminal activity.

“As a national armed police force responsible for protecting critical national infrastructure, keeping the public safe is at the heart of what we do. The main advantage of Project Servator is that it allows us to connect with the communities around our sites. Those who live and work in an area know it better than anyone and notice anything out of the ordinary so we are asking those local to Heysham to also trust their instincts and report any suspicious activity to us.

“The deployments are unpredictable - we can turn up anywhere at any time. The aim is to work with our local communities to disrupt any hostile threat.

“Remember, together, we’ve got it covered - report any suspicious activity directly to the CNC by calling 03303 138146.”

The CNC is the armed police force in charge of protecting civil nuclear sites and nuclear materials in England, Scotland and Wales. We employ over 1,500 highly trained police officers and police staff across the UK. Counter terrorism is a major part of our policing.

We have our own Twitter, Facebook and Instagram page, so keep up to date with recruitment information, Servator deployments or anything CNC by searching for us and giving us a follow.

Published 4 March 2021