City of Melville Council has today revealed a new multi-faceted community safety service, ‘MelSafe’, which combines community safety, rangers, parking and compliance patrols into one coordinated team.
The initiative has been launched with new specially-outfitted, branded electric patrol cars.
The Council says the MelSafe team will work closely with WA Police in a unique community safety model based on local law enforcement, investigation and patrols using advanced compliance technology.
“Often it’s the small issues that can be resolved quickly by MelSafe that make the biggest difference to our residents’ quality of life. Through MelSafe’s efficient service model, we’re able to mitigate these matters more effectively,” said Mayor, Katy Mair.
“A strong focus of the Council’s Plan for the Future 2024 to 2034 is fostering healthy and safe communities and MelSafe helps us achieve that aim.”
The development of MelSafe follows a comprehensive review of the City’s Community Safety Service in 2024. Community feedback showed residents wanted a ‘one-stop shop’ for services and MelSafe delivers that. It is a smarter, more agile operating model that leverages new technology, improves community visibility, and has the City’s customer-first approach at its heart, said the Mayor.
Every MelSafe officer has undertaken specialist training delivered by experts and programs that include conflict resolution, de-escalation, customer service, welfare awareness, and dog-handling safety.
MelSafe uses a completely electrified fleet of specially outfitted Teslas which are cost-effective and environmentally responsible. They reduce fuel and servicing costs and downtime. Charging stations for the vehicles are being co-funded through Commonwealth Grants.
“MelSafe is a one-stop-shop in partnership with our community to make the City of Melville an even better place to live and work,” said Mayor Mair.
“Apart from improving our services to the community and improving our use of safety technology, the modern MelSafe approach includes a switch to electric patrol vehicles which reinforces the City’s commitments to sustainability, detailed in our Council Plan for the Future 2024-2034.”
MelSafe will also have a renewed focus on precinct-related compliance matters like Canning Bridge and Fiona Stanely Hospital areas, monitoring ongoing issues like unauthorised signage, recurring parking breaches, and compliance with development sites.
“MelSafe will streamline the City’s operations across all aspects of community safety into one unified efficient and community focused team,” said Council CEO, Gail Bowman.
“Increasingly, over the past few years, the expectations of ratepayers have changed, especially with people feeling frustrated by processes like needing to speak with multiple teams about the same issue. MelSafe will ease those customer pain-points and provide a single point of contact for most of our community safety matters.”
“It’s important to point out that MelSafe is not a replacement for WA Police, but it can play a role in complementing the work of police in both preventing crime and anti-social behaviour and simply being a presence on the streets when help is needed.”
Council Head of Community Safety, Mike Emery said MelSafe has a customer-first focus and was designed to make safety simple for the local community.
“If a request falls within our role, we get it done quickly and efficiently,” he said.
“MelSafe is unique to City of Melville, and we developed it in response to community demand by combining safety response, enforcement of our local laws, investigation and patrols and advanced compliance technology.
“A major focus is placed on officer preparedness, personal safety, and ensuring confident, consistent responses across all interactions.”
Training includes officer safety tactics, conflict de-escalation, Customer service, communication techniques and technology training for body-worn and vehicle cameras and duress alarms.
“At the heart of MelSafe is an advanced customer management system specifically built over the last 12-months to support operations,” Mr Emery said.
“The distinctive new patrol cars have been fitted with everything the officer needs to do their jobs efficiently and safely.”
“Our message to the community is simple: if you need us, call 131 24-7 any time, day or night — we’re here to help.”
