CHESHIRE Constabulary has teamed up with university students and staff to create a showcase crime prevention garden at the 2019 Tatton RHS Flower Show.

The students from University College Reaseheath visited police headquarters in Winsford during the country's biggest celebration of gardening - RHS National Gardening Week - to present the garden design to Chief Constable Darren Martland and Deputy Chief Constable Julie Cook, explaining how the garden has been carefully planned to educate visitors on how to stay safe online.

Chester and District Standard:

Police and students at Police HQ

The garden design will help to promote the five simple steps to stay safe online using Cheshire Constabulary’s 5Cs guide to online safety. The 5Cs, in short, are:

  • Create – create strong passwords
  • Cover – protect devices with regular updating of software
  • Confidentiality – don’t share personal information and know who you are talking to
  • Clicking – think before you click, make sure the source is genuine
  • Connected – always use a secure connection

We are all living in a world where we are rapidly becoming more reliant on digital technology and have to adapt quickly to the many daily tasks we do, whether that be in our personal life, at home or in the workplace. As we let more digital technology into our lives it opens up new vulnerabilities and the threats keep growing.

Detective Sergeant Chris Maddocks, who heads up the Force’s cyber crime unit, said: “Cyber crime is one of the fastest growing crimes in the UK and can affect anyone regardless of age, gender, job or location. It now accounts for 48 per cent of all recorded crime. However, around 80 per cent of known cyber attacks can be prevented by following our five simple rules, which we have called the 5Cs.

“We are asking people to change their online behaviour by following those 5Cs and want to do that in creative and innovative ways. We’re hoping that a cyber crime garden at RHS Tatton will provide an effective and memorable experience that will encourage everyone who visits to follow and share the 5Cs guide to online safety to keep themselves, their families and friends safe.”

Steven Williams, lecturer in Design and Construction at Reaseheath College, and a team of BSc Landscape Architecture undergraduates have been working closely with the Constabulary on the garden design and build.

Steve said: “This garden aims to raise the awareness of the five simple steps that can be taken to help people stay safe online. Our design, created by a team of Landscape Architecture undergraduates working to a brief given by Cheshire police, will draw attention to their 5Cs which will be represented throughout the garden. The students, Jake Jackson, Katie Monton, Nathan Webster and Brad Howarth will also lead on the garden build, under my supervision, and they’ll be supported by other Reaseheath horticulture students.”

This same team, who will be assessed on the successful facilitation of the garden at RHS Tatton 2019, have already proved their capabilities as they were responsible for a silver medal winning show garden at last year’s RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park.

Barclays Bank are sponsoring the show garden. Barclays share a common interest in helping keep people safe from cyber crime and fraud and the show garden at RHS Tatton show will give everyone involved the opportunity to communicate important cyber safety messages.

Claire Littler, Barclays employee engagement manager, added: “With the number of customers going online rapidly rising the issue of cyber security has never been more important. Some of the actions that customers can take to get cyber smart includes installing software that keeps your data safe and raising awareness of some of the common cons that would be fraudsters use. As fraud becomes more sophisticated its critical for customers to learn new ways to stay safe online.”

2019 Tatton RHS Flower Show will take place between July 17-21.