I am very pleased to see that anti-social behaviour within Crawley has been recorded as dropping by almost 15%.  Alongside this, Sussex Police have also seen a reduction in reports of domestic abuse and violence against women and girls within the borough.

Some of the work that’s been carried out to reduce anti-social behaviour within the district, has been organised by The Safer Crawley Partnership who received a grant of over £51,000 from Sussex Police & Crime Commissioner (PCC) Katy Bourne’s Community Safety Fund.  It is worth noting that this was the greatest amount of any community safety funding awarded to a local authority in West Sussex.  Funding allocated for Crawley by Katy Bourne has also been awarded for prevention and diversionary schemes for young people.

Over the last year, Sussex Police has recruited an additional 192 police officers, which is helping to improve the local visible neighbourhood response, as well as helping Crawley to see the solved rates of business and community burglary crimes nearly double in comparison to last year.  Police numbers in Sussex overall are up some 10% since 2012 when Katy Bourne was first elected as our PCC.

Keen to help continue drive-down crime in Crawley, Katy Bourne has used her most recent round of Conservative government ‘Safer Streets’ funding to pay for targeted patrols locally, including dedicated drone operators.  This builds upon £1.5m of Safer Streets funding secured in the previous round, some of this has also gone towards installing additional CCTV and lighting in Crawley, such as £30,000 for CCTV in the Memorial Gardens.  We’ve also benefited from a taxi marshal scheme, street pastor scheme and provision of training for individuals working in the night-time economy to help keep people safe.

Katy Bourne has also worked with large supermarkets and retailers to create Project Pegasus which brings together national retailers, and will fund a distinct team to bring together crime data and intelligence from all retailers with the overall aim of identifying and putting cases together to tackle serious and organised crime groups, who are recognised to be behind the increase in shoplifting offences.

 

Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group

25th October 2023