The Commissioner will hold a series of Anti-Social Behaviour Summits in January 2023 to work with the Police and key partners from community safety and local councils to housing and tenants’ associations in the county. This work will build on the excellent partnership work already taking place and the steps already taken to tackle ASB including the recruitment of hundreds of additional officers, investments into rural and urban taskforces, the change from hybrid policing to dedicated neighbourhood and response teams as well as the support for local projects through the Commissioner’s Safer Lancashire Neighbourhoods Fund.
The summits will be used to share key insights from the independent anti-social behaviour survey which was carried out on behalf of the Commissioner to ensure that any future work can target residents’ biggest concerns and focus on areas that have been highlighted as ASB hotspots.
Survey results show that 27 per cent of residents have witnessed ASB in the past 12 months while 39 per cent have been directly affected by anti-social behaviour.
Most incidents of ASB occur close to residents’ own homes with 42 per cent occurring at people’s home address or on their street and 23 per cent within a 15 minute walk of where they live.
Intimidating behaviour, verbal abuse and drug dealing were reported as some of the top concerns for residents across the county.
The January summits will be used to bring together key partners to share further and more localised insights from the survey, to further strengthen existing local partnerships and to form a joint up response to tackling ASB in all areas of Lancashire.
Further to this, work is underway to establish a dedicated anti-social behaviour problem solving unit within the Constabulary with the aim of working closely with all Lancashire partners to form a strong and joint up response to ASB in the county.
Commissioner Snowden said: “Anti-social behaviour is an issue that residents raise with me time and time again and it is something that I take very seriously.
“I have made getting tough on ASB a key priority in my Police and Crime Plan and I want residents to see that I am listening and that I am taking action to address their concerns.
“It was really important to me to get a true picture of the scale and types of anti-social behaviour in our communities which is why I commissioned an independent survey to provide additional insights on ASB which we know is underreported.
“Anti-social behaviour isn’t an issue that can be solved by policing alone and now is the time to share the insights we have gathered with our partners so that we can tackle the issue together and form a joint up response where all agencies play their part.
“In January I will host a series of summits to bring together senior Lancashire leaders to further build on our excellent local partnerships and to ensure that we work together as efficiently and effectively as possible to address local issues in the best possible way to resolve any ASB problems for local residents.
“The summits and survey insights will also inform the work of the Constabulary’s dedicated ASB problem solving unit which is being established in 2023.
“I am proud to see this work building on what has already been achieved during my time in office – over 600 new officers will have joined the Constabulary by next year, the hybrid model of policing is being replaced by dedicated neighbourhood and response teams, I have invested in both rural and urban task forces to tackle local issues head on and my Safer Lancashire Neighbourhoods Fund continues to support projects to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour.
“In combination, all of these steps will make a real impact in local neighbourhoods and will improve the response to incidents of anti-social behaviour in Lancashire.”
