Crime commissioner challenges councils to follow Telford's lead on crime project

The £1.5 million Safer Communities initiative aims to tackle anti-social behaviour and improve quality of life in targeted areas, and PCC John Campion said it was a “particular success” of the last year.

The majority of the funding comes from Telford & Wrekin Council, with Mr Campion’s office contributing £500,000.

The Conservative PCC told the West Mercia Police and Crime Panel – which consists of councillors and lay members from across the force area – “Why isn’t it in Worcestershire? Why isn’t it in Shropshire? Why isn’t it in Herefordshire?”

He added that he was “always up for an interesting and innovative project”.

The scheme involves the local council and the force pooling information and drawing up action plans for individual neighbourhoods, chosen based on factors like employment rates, school attendance and health inequalities as well as crime rate.

Presenting his 2020-21 Annual Report to the panel, he said Safer Communities was “a particular success during the last year, and also a challenge to some of the other local authorities”.

“We successfully launched, with Telford and Wrekin Council, an initiative on the back of the Safer Streets initiative, called Safer Communities,” he said.

“We work on environmental place-shaping initiatives, tackling priorities for those communities in line with the principals of Safer Streets.

“That’s unique within West Mercia and credit to Telford and Wrekin Council who were keen to do it, but also it makes huge sense to me as commissioner because it is about reducing crime and increasing public confidence.

“I would ask the panel’s local authority members: Why isn’t it in Worcestershire? Why isn’t it in Shropshire? Why isn’t it in Herefordshire? I do think there is a challenge to local authorities to ensure we can partner wherever possible because I can think of many examples where it would work.

“I can’t always do the running but I am always up for an effective partnership that makes a difference to our communities.”

He noted that Telford and Wrekin Council is Labour-run, so it was “not in my political interest to be nice about it’s administration”, but added that he gave credit to its leader, Shaun Davies, for instigating the scheme.

Mr Campion said it was an easy decision for his office to sign up and contribute to it.

Panel chairman Aled Luckman asked how often the PCC met with local authority leaders to raise issues and requests like that.

Mr Campion said he did so “roughly quarterly”, and he offered to attend full council meetings to answer questions along with the Chief Constable “every couple of years”.

Councillor Roger Evans, a Liberal Democrat member of Shropshire Council, said full meetings might not be the best forum, and said back-bench scrutiny committees had a less formal, more exploratory and conversational style.

Mr Campion said his office monitors scrutiny committees when they discuss relevant topics, and said he was “always willing” to attend them if there was a “meaningful purpose”.

Said he agreed with Councillor Evans that scrutiny meetings had a different atmosphere and purpose than full council meetings, but said “the opportunity for the whole council to access and make points on behalf of their electors at the full council meetings is important”.