Issue - meetings

To receive an update on Building Safer & Stronger Communities.  

The Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Highways, Housing and Enforcement presented a report, which provided an update on the Building Safer and Stronger Communities investment since 2021. If approved, the report sought approval to utilise Council funding as set out in the Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS), to deliver initiatives and develop partnerships that promoted neighbourhood safety, which included measures to strengthen the Council’s commitment to tackle domestic abuse and violence against women and girls (VAWG) while further enhancing the Youth Offer.

Councillor Overton presented a short video confirming that there was now around one in eight fewer crimes, and that antisocial behaviour and fly tips had almost halved.  Youth clubs, sports, chances to volunteer, mentor and coach - Building safer, stronger communities not only mattered, but it also worked. 

The Council had provided funding of £1.5m to save a project that delivered. 

Since 2021, the Council had taken a clear and decisive approach to standing on the side of its residents and through its Building Safer and Stronger Communities programme, it had made a conscious decision to do more, to invest, to intervene early, and to work in partnership to tackle the issues that mattered most to its communities. This approach had delivered real results, because this was not theory, but evidence.

Since the programme began, there had been a 12 % reduction in crime in key

areas of the borough, a 45 % reduction in antisocial behaviour reports and a 43 % reduction in fly tipping in some areas, which was a significant achievement since it showed that when the Council invested locally, worked with partners and focused on prevention, it made a real difference to people's lives.

This programme started with a £2.5m investment in partnership with the West Mercia Police and the Police and Crime Commissioner.  It had grown into a £6.5m programme of investment, which delivered targeted action where it was needed most.  Also, it did not only reduce crime, but it had also improved neighbourhoods.

The Council had carried out over 700 proactive housing inspections to improve standards; acted on over 3,000 fly-tip incidents, with enforcement on more than 600 cases, and had supported thousands of residents through community environmental work.  This was about visible, practical action that residents could see in their streets.

The Council needed to be honest about where it was today.  Despite the success of this partnership approach, the Police and Crime Commissioner had withdrawn funding from April 2026, at a time when this approach was working, delivering and supporting policing priorities.  That decision was quite simply backwards, because this programme reduced demand on the police, prevented crime before it happened and supported safer communities across the borough.  Yet, despite this, the funding had been removed.

The Council would not step back and would continue this work by committing a further £1.5m Council funding to keep this programme going and evolve it into its next phase, which would build on what worked and what the Council would continue to deliver.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 63