Home Secretary sees Notts efforts to make town centres safer
The Home Secretary visited Beeston to see how police and partners are working together to keep people safe in Nottinghamshire’s town centres this summer.
Yvette Cooper was given a whistlestop tour of the town yesterday to see local efforts to tackle town centre criminality, street crime, shop theft and antisocial behaviour, as part of the Home Office’s Safer Streets Summer Initiative.
Starting at Beeston Police Station, the Home Secretary met Nottinghamshire Police and Crime Commissioner Gary Godden, Assistant Chief Constable Sukesh Verma, of Nottinghamshire Police, and Broxtowe MP Juliet Campbell, before being taken on a walkabout in the town centre, including a visit to the Boots store in High Road.
PCC Godden said: “Town centres are focal points for communities so it’s important that people feel safe when they go there, whether it is for work, leisure or because they live there.
“The fact is that people’s perceptions of crime and safety can be very different to the data – so even if the stats say an area is safe it doesn’t guarantee that people feel safe.
“By coming together as partners to visibly showcase some of the great work that is going on every day to keep people safe, we want to give people confidence that our town centres are safe and enjoyable places.”
The Safer Streets Summer Initiative sees Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables across England and Wales lead coordinated action to reduce crime and antisocial behaviour in key towns and city areas over the summer months in a bid to restore public confidence in policing and public safety.
Beeston is one of ten Nottinghamshire locations receiving intensive support through the campaign, which is underpinned by the Government’s Hotspot Policing Fund and aims to deliver visible policing, local engagement, and meaningful consequences for those causing harm in our communities.
Statistics show a 33 per cent positive outcome rate for retail crime in Beeston over the last 12 months, which is well above the 17 per cent national average.
The positive outcome rate relates to the percentage of recorded crimes that result in a specific positive outcome, such as a charge, conviction, or other sanction.
Antisocial behaviour in Beeston has also fallen by 13 per cent over the last year, with force teams continuing to work proactively and collaboratively to drive this crime type down even further.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “High streets and town centres are the very heart of our communities. Residents and businesses have the right to feel safe in their towns.
“We all want high streets where local shops can succeed, and people feel safe.
“It’s time to turn this round, that’s why I have called on police forces and councils alike to work together to deliver a summer blitz on town centre crime to send a clear message to those people who bring misery to our towns that their crimes will no longer go unpunished.
“The fact that 500 town centres have signed up shows the strength of feeling on this issue. In Beeston today I have seen how the PCC, police, council and retailers are answering the call and working together, something that will be being replicated across towns in Nottinghamshire.
“Through our Safer Streets mission and Plan for Change, we are putting officers back on the beat where you can see them and making our town centres safe again."
ACC Verma said: “Our results in Beeston are testament to the hard work of our workforce and our strong collaborative working relationships with our businesses, partners, and communities.
“We have remodelled our neighbourhood policing approach, to ensure that our officers are in the right places at the right times to deal with the problems affecting our communities.
“I’m hopeful that we will continue to see a reduction in offences while seeing a continual rise in positive outcomes as a result of our collaborative efforts to prevent and reduce crime and tackle the issues that matter most to our local communities.”
Earlier in the day, the Home Secretary and Jess Phillips, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State and Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, also joined PCC Godden and his East Midlands PCC counterparts and Chief Constables, and Deputy PCC Angela Kandola, at Derby County’s Pride Park for a networking event for the Safer Streets Summer Initiative.
This was convened by the Home Office to allow police and crime commissioners, policing partners, and wider local stakeholders in the region to share ideas and collaborate.