New Community Safety Plan launched

A new action plan to further cut crime and reduce anti-social behaviour in Thanet has been published, with updates on the progress made to date.

The new Community Safety Plan runs from 2009 to 2012 and is produced by the Thanet Community Safety Partnership, a group of organisations working to make Thanet a safer place to live, work and visit.

An assessment was carried out, which looked at statistical crime data and identified areas to concentrate on over the next year. Local people and the agencies involved were then consulted about these priorities and asked for their views.

As a result, five priority areas for action have been identified, which are:

1. violence in the night-time economy
Actions:
Joint operations and monitoring of licensed premises by the police and council
Initiatives to prevent problems, such as the Marine Terrace campaign
Targeted initiatives to reduce violent incidents in the worst affected areas

2. domestic abuse
Actions:
Projects to raise awareness of domestic abuse and increase reporting of incidents
Look at the possibility of providing additional support services for victims and children
Introduce a perpetrator programme to change their abusive behaviour

3. criminal damage
Actions:
Targeted projects and operations to tackle criminal damage
Ensure diversionary activities are available to young people, such as street art

4. anti-social behaviour
Actions:
Work with PACT panels to understand local people’s concerns
Work with young people who have committed anti-social behaviour or are at risk of doing so.
Take targeted action against the worst cases of anti-social behaviour and continue to use the mediation service to help tackle more minor cases.

5. community engagement
Actions:
Give residents more say on deciding community payback projects.
Provide regular newsletters to homes in Thanet about local events and meetings.
Have regular meetings in every ward, open to everyone to raise any issues or concerns to council and police officers.

The plan also looks at last year’s progress, which included success in reducing night-time crime, particularly along Marine Terrace in Margate, with crime halved during summer 2008.

Community Safety Manager, Mark Richardson, said: “We’ve achieved a huge amount in tackling crime and anti-social behaviour in Thanet over the last year and our new Community Safety Plan is really about building on that excellent work. What we now want to concentrate on its people’s perceptions of how safe they are in Thanet. Crime and anti-social behaviour has gone down by 9% over the last year, the figures clearly show that, but people don’t seem to feel any safer. That’s an area we really want to focus on and get the message out about what’s being done in your community to help make Thanet a safer place to live, work and visit.”