New measures will ensure every community will have dedicated and specialist neighbourhood policing teams, ending the postcode lottery on law and order.
Announcing the plan, the Prime Minister said that in recent years visible policing has fallen dramatically, with the number of people who regularly see officers patrolling in their local area halving in the past decade. 90% of crime has been left unsolved and there were one million incidents of antisocial behaviour last year alone, including big increases in street crime.
The measures will put prevention at the heart of policing. Under the government’s Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, crimes like vandalism or antisocial behaviour will be less likely to turn into more serious and violent offences, boosting confidence and security in local communities across Britain.
The Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee will put 13,000 more officers into neighbourhood policing roles by 2029, an increase of more than 50%. The early focus of the plan will be to establish named local officers, target town centre crime and build back neighbourhood policing, meaning hard working people can feel safer and more secure in their daily lives.
The advantage of having a named officer is that it humanises the relationship between the police and the community. People report greater trust and confidence in the police when they can reach out to an officer who knows their area, and the communities who live there. Evidence suggests that patrols alone don’t make a significant difference to cutting crime, what is effective is combining them with community engagement.
Our members regularly work with the police, partners and the local people to adopt a problem-solving approach to crime and antisocial behaviour. And yet, nearly a third of people who responded to our community survey told us they lack a feeling of safety. It is especially important for younger people; they are the age group least likely to feel safe in their neighbourhoods.
John Hayward-Cripps, Chief Executive of Neighbourhood Watch
The measures, announced today, will transform communities across Britain and will deliver the security communities deserve:
- Each neighbourhood will have named, contactable officers to tackle the issues facing their communities, helping to restore trust that policing is working to keep people safe and meaning no community feels ignored when they need help.
- Every neighbourhood in England and Wales will have dedicated teams who will spend their time on the beat with guaranteed police patrols in town centres and other hotspot areas at peak times such as Friday and Saturday nights.
- There will be a dedicated antisocial behaviour lead in every force, working with residents and businesses to develop tailored action plans to tackle record levels of antisocial behaviour, which is blighting communities.
Everyone deserves to feel safe and secure on the streets they call home. It is just about the most basic right that anyone would expect. Yet for years crimes such as shoplifting and antisocial behaviour have wreaked havoc on our neighbourhoods. Policing has become reactive, picking up the pieces after crimes have occurred.
Britain deserves better. It should not matter where you live – everyone deserves local, visible policing they can trust, and with our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee we will end this postcode lottery, putting prevention back at the heart of policing and ensuring police are back on the streets.
That’s why our Plan for Change is delivering security for working people in their communities with a return to neighbourhood policing, putting thousands of bobbies back on the beat and keeping people safe.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer
Under these plans, communities across the country will, for the first time in 15 years, be able to hold forces to account and expect a minimum standard of policing in their area.
The heartbeat of our Great British policing tradition is seeing bobbies on the beat, but for too long, too many communities have been feeling abandoned as crime soared and neighbourhood police disappeared, even when local crimes like shop theft, street theft or blatant drug dealing rose sharply.
That’s why this government is determined to get police back on the beat and into our town centres.
It should not matter where you live – everyone deserves local, visible policing they can trust, and with our Plan for Change and Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee we will tackle this postcode lottery and restore policing to our communities
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper