To contact any UK emergency service telephone 999.

The telephone operator will ask you which emergency service you require: Police, Fire Service or Ambulance.

All 999 calls are FREE of CHARGE.

Police officers patrol the streets of Stratford upon Avon on foot but more frequently in patrol cars. UK police officers do not routinely carry firearms unless they are attached to armed response units.

Street crime in Stratford upon Avon tends to be low level, ( litter dropping, drunken behaviour, drug taking and begging) and, in common with most of the UK, largely ignored by the police.

Automobile crime though is rigorously prosecuted, speeding, dangerous driving and drunken driving all attract fines and worse !

This may be in part due to the hundreds of surveillance cameras in most UK towns and cities.

Great Britain today has the highest number of surveillance cameras watching its population than any other country in the world.

Together with the US sponsored ECHELON communications surveillance computer; monitoring Cell phone transmissions, Email messages, SMS messages, FAX messages and telephone calls. The era of Big Brother has finally arrived.

Some may take comfort from this blanket of surveillance, others view it as an invasion of our civil liberties.