Residents asked their views for new community safety strategy

Residents are being asked their views on issues important to them and their neighbourhoods, to help inform a new community safety strategy for Stoke-on-Trent.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council wants to hear from local people and groups to help shape the way it and partners work over the next three years. The council works with a range of organisations including Staffordshire Police, Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service, the voluntary sector and health services, as part of the city-wide Community Safety Partnership.

Between April 2019 and April 2020 the partnership has helped to: Reduce the number of victims of crime by 2,023.
Reduce reports of anti-social behaviour by 2,096 – this includes 305 fewer reports relating to begging and vagrancy, and 1,823 fewer reports of rowdy and inconsiderate behaviour.
Reduce the number of victims of public space violence by 420.
Reduce the number of reports of domestic abuse by 953.
Refer 2,733 people to support services for domestic abuse.
Reduce hate crime by 52 incidents.

Council leader Abi Brown said: “The partnership has worked hard to come together in an even more co-ordinated way to share information and intelligence where appropriate, talk through concerns in communities and work together on ways to address them. There are regular meetings across agencies and a lot of our work is geared towards tackling issues before they develop. We have good and growing relationships with communities across the city, and we want this to continue. The results achieved across the past 12 months are really encouraging; it is a great building block as we look to the next three years. We want to hear from residents across the city to help us to make sure we are addressing the issues that are important in local communities and neighbourhoods.”

Residents are asked to fill in a short ‘community safety survey’ via: https://www.stoke.gov.uk/consultation. The survey should take no more than 10 minutes to complete, and all information is confidential. The responses will be used to shape the priorities and work of partners through a new community safety strategy which will be developed over the coming months.