Street layout in Telford's Brookside estate is 'ideal for crime' - police boss
An estate’s above-average crime rate can be partly explained by its street layout, a senior police officer has said.
South Telford Safer Neighbourhood Inspector Sean Brennan said Brookside in Telford was built “cheaply and quickly” using a layout that left cars out of their owners’ sight and gave thieves easy escape routes through a “network of criss-crossing alleyways”.
Insp Brennan was talking to West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner John Campion about a £550,000 grant the force has received from the Home Office’s £25 million Safer Streets Fund, which aims to fight burglary, robbery and theft.
Speaking on Mr Campion’s “Safer West Mercia” podcast, he said this would be spent on improving CCTV coverage and lighting in Brookside, adding gates at 14 alley entrances and installing additional security equipment at 150 vulnerable properties.
“As soon as we heard about the fund we knew it would be the right fit for Brookside,” he said.
“In respect of Brookside, for some time we’ve been trying to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour, but there’s only so much we can do with police resources alone. We can put boots on the ground, we can make arrests and that kind of thing, but we were keen to do more with more.
“I would caveat that and say Brookside is a safe place to live, but it’s important to understand some of the context and legacy issues that stretch back to when it was built in the 1960s.”
Dawley, Madeley, Oakengates and Wellington were incorporated into the new town of Telford in 1963, and Brookside, Sutton Hill and Woodside were created in the years that followed.
“The brief at the time was that these should be built as quickly and cheaply as possible, following the American ‘Radburn principle’,” Insp Brennan said
Originally used in Radburn, New Jersey, this saw houses “arranged together in cul-de-sacs all pointing towards a ‘super-block’ in the middle” and aimed to make estates navigable on foot, he said.
“Unfortunately, in Britain, the planners, for whatever reason, decided to flip the concept on its head.
“The American principle had the properties face the street, so you’d come out of your house and into your car, but the British planners, in their wisdom, turned that round so the properties faced inward, so you had the cars relegated to rear parking courts, vulnerable to car crime.
“This created ideal conditions for crime and anti-social behaviour; high-density estates, very permeable, with a network of criss-crossing alleyways.”
Part of the Safer Streets funding will be used to place 14 new lockable alley gates in Brookside. He said these have led to a 43 per cent reduction in burglaries in other areas.
Insp Brennan said Safer Streets money was also funding a housing enforcement officer for a year “to focus on improving living standards and holding landlords to account”. In addition, 50 doorbell cameras will be installed and 150 vulnerable properties will have additional security equipment installed.
He said data about poverty, health, employment and crime rates fed into the Safer Streets bid.
“Brookside has never really benefited from the same level of regenerative funding as some other areas of Telford and West Mercia has,” he said.
