Safe & Secure – Looking Back & Forward

20th January 2023

SAVE THE DATE

Save the Date of 1st March for our next Safe and Secure BID Breakfast event where we will update you on what is going on in the city centre and give you the opportunity to ask questions of our panel.

Details are still being finalised but we are delighted to confirm the Lancashire Police & Crime Commissioner, Andrew Snowden, as our first confirmed panel member.

Lancaster BID has received PCC funding over the past year to extend the hours of the BID Warden into the early evenings. The PCC visit will be an opportunity for him to see first hand what the funding has achieved and hear about the ongoing priorities in Lancaster city centre.

 

Looking Back and Forward

Sergeant Lindsay Brown has shared his views on some of the key successes of our Safe and Secure agenda along with a preview of upcoming priorities for the city centre police team.

The New Year gives us an opportunity to look back over 2022 and review what Safe & Secure Lancaster has acheived with its partners. The main aim of Safe and Secure is to tackle anti-social behaviour and crime through working together; and it ‘s a great story for the city centre.  2022 has seen anti-social behaviour (ASB) cut by nearly 14% and Burglary by over a quarter when compared to 2021.  These reductions are significant against a backdrop of of the cost of living crisis which affects us all.  By working together we have:

 

• Increased the visible working hours of the BID warden into the early evening through a successful funding bid to the Police and Crime Commisioner – assessment of the icreased visibility and working closer with the city centre PCSO’s is showing an even better reduction in ASB of nearly a third since the scheme began.
• Utilising the DISC system to report crimes online and share information about some of our most prolific offenders has allowed us to effectively target them and put them behaind bars for some significant sentences.
• Community Radio is being effectively being used on a daily basis and confidence has increased with buisness working together to highlight concerns to others.  We’ve also had some great success locating missing vulnerable people before they have come to harm.
• Operation Brassica – our Police response to community concern around ASB has led the way in tackling the problem head on and is now being championed around the county as best practice.  This would only have been possible with your support.

 

2023 will be a challenging year ahead but we are determined to keep working together to tackle the issues that concern you.  Looking ahead to some of the things you will see us working on in the year ahead:

 

• New Response Officer recruits are hitting the streets throughout January as a result of our recruitment campaign in the Autumn
• Week commenced 23^rd January sees the Neighbourhood Policing Week of Action where our teams will focus on highlighting the work they carry out tirelessly throughout the year
• Increased CCTV provision in some of the harder to reach areas of the city
• Bidding for more funding opportunites to support our plans
• Working closer with our schools to further reduce youth related ASB
• Continuing to champion StreetAid to reduce begging and homelessness

Lindsay adds ‘I think its useful to look back and see how far Safe & Secure Lancaster has come and would like to thank everyone who has got involved in the initiative over the last year.’