Summer blitz on town centre crime announced by Home Secretary

Over recent years street crime has sky-rocketed, with theft from the person more than doubling between December 2022 and December 2024, and there has been record levels of shop theft, up by more than 60 per cent –  with offenders increasingly using violence and abuse against shopworkers.

Commissioned by the Home Secretary, police and crime commissioners (PCCs) across England and Wales have developed bespoke local action plans with police, businesses and local councils to crackdown on crime this summer.

The aim is to support town centres to be vibrant places where people want to live, work and spend time, and restore faith in community policing after years of declining police officer presence on Britain’s streets.

These plans include increased visible town centre policing and ramping up the use of targeted enforcement powers against troublemakers – including banning perpetrators from hotspots.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “High streets and town centres are the very heart of our communities. Residents and businesses have the right to feel safe in their towns. But the last government left a surge in shop theft, street crime and anti-social behaviour which has left too many town centres feeling abandoned.

“It’s time to turn this round, that’s why I have called on police forces and councils alike to work together to deliver a summer blitz on town centre crime to send a clear message to those people who bring misery to our towns that their crimes will no longer go unpunished.

“The fact that 500 towns have signed up shows the strength of feeling on this issue.”

The summer initiative will also support young people, making sure there are activities across the 500 towns for young people to be involved in throughout the holidays.

The Home Office, alongside police, retailers and industry are also launching a new Tackling Retail Crime Together Strategy, which will use shared data to assist in disrupting not just organised criminal gangs, but all types of perpetrators including prolific offenders who are stealing to fund an addiction and ‘opportunist’ offenders.

Initiatives taking place this summer include:

• In Humberside, police are using real-time mapping to deliver dynamic patrols to target emerging problem locations while reassuring local communities;
• In Devon and Cornwall, police are embedding specialist anti-social behaviour lawyers to fast-track enforcement activity;
• In Derbyshire, police have developed a Night Time Economy Charter to help deliver consistent proactive policing and coordinated management across the four largest local town centres;
• In Wales, Dyfed-Powys Police is targeting seasonal, tourist towns through early police visibility, deterrence and community reassurance; and
• In Nottinghamshire, police have introduced a new diversionary intervention programme for Out of Court Resolutions with conditions attached for problem offenders

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said:  “We are on the side of local businesses, and our Plan for Change is helping create the right conditions for our great British high streets to thrive.

“The Safer Streets Summer Initiative will play a vital role in achieving this by keeping footfall high, communities and those that work in them safe, and the economy growing.

“Shop theft and the abuse of shopworkers has become an endemic problem for Britain’s high streets with many shopworkers victimised in the same communities where they live.”

The Government is set to introduce a new law to protect shop workers from abuse.

Record levels of shop theft have been driven not just by organised crime gangs but drug addiction for some prolific offenders and opportunism for others.

The new Tackling Retail Crime Together Strategy will bring together multiple sources of data from industry and policing to create a single avenue for intelligence to help better target and respond to perpetrators.

Police and retailers will also team up with security firms and local communities to locate the highest harm areas and identify the role offender management programmes can play in breaking the cycle of crime for repeat offenders.

Chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners Emily Spurrell said: “PCCs and Deputy Mayors know how much people want to rid their neighbourhoods of criminal and anti-social behaviour (ASB) that blights too many communities.

“Tackling retail crime and ASB is essential to allowing our town centres to flourish. People have a right to feel safe and shop workers shouldn’t have to defend their stores against regular and organised theft, putting themselves at risk of violence.

“As the public’s voice in policing, we have long understood that neighbourhood policing is key to addressing these issues which is why we welcomed the Government’s Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee. It will see thousands more officers on our streets and introduce specialist training for them to operate effectively within local communities, building trust.

“With our local police forces and other partners in support of the Safer Streets Summer initiative, PCCs and Deputy Mayors will be working harder than ever to target criminal and anti-social behaviour so that people feel safe and have pride in where they live and work. We are determined to deliver real and demonstrable change so that communities and town centres can thrive and prosper.”

The initiative was launched on Friday (July 4) at an event hosted by the Home Office and the English Football League at Derby County Football Club, attended by partner representatives from police, businesses, local councils and local government.

It will see increased collaborative community-led interventions across sectors such as schemes to keep kids out of trouble during the summer holidays and targeted prevention activity with businesses, to not only tackle crime, but prevent crime and anti-social behaviour happening in the first place.

Assistant Chief Constable Alex Goss, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for retail crime, said: “We know retail crime has a significant impact on victims, damages businesses and communities and goes far beyond financial loss. We also know it is a complex problem with a diverse offender profile and is something which requires a strong partnership approach, tackling the issues together.

“Over the last two years we have made significant strides in our fight against retail crime, strengthening relationships with retailers and greatly improving information sharing which has resulted in a number of high harm offenders being brought to justice and the new Retail Crime Strategy builds on this even further. It brings together policing, retailers, the security industry and academia in a shared strategy which makes best use of our collective resources to turn the tide on the volume of offending blighting our communities.

“A collective approach is key, ensuring everyone can enjoy where they live, work and spend their leisure time safely.”

Superintendent Lisa Maslen of the National Business Crime Centre (NBCC) said: “Retail crime continues to have a significant impact on businesses, staff, and communities across the country. The Tackling Retail Crime Together strategy and campaign is about strengthening the vital partnerships between policing and the retail sector to deliver meaningful action.

“The NBCC received £2 million of funding from the Home Office to support police and partners in tackling retail crime and we have used some of the funding to develop the first national campaign to highlight the amount of work being done to respond to, prevent and detect retail crime offences across the country.

“There will also be increased collaborative community led interventions across sectors such as schemes to keep kids out of trouble during the summer holidays and targeted prevention activity with businesses, to not only tackle crime but prevent crime and ASB happening in the first place.”

Hetal Patel, national president of the Federation of Independent Retailers (the Fed) said: “This crackdown on shop theft, street theft and anti-social behaviour is timely and welcome. Shop theft is often seen as a victimless crime but this is not the case. It takes a heavy toll mentally, physically and financially on shop owners, their families and their employees. At the same time, the financial costs of retail crime will eventually impact on customers through inflated prices.

“ASB, meanwhile, can cost independent retailers dear in terms of cleaning and clearing up, as well as increasing premiums, deterring footfall and shoppers.

“A recent Fed survey found that 72 per cent of respondents had experienced shoplifting, break ins and damage to their property and they and their staff had been physically or verbally threatened. A whopping 91 per cent of respondents called for more police patrols on streets.

“Everyone deserves to feel safe at work and for their businesses to be protected against criminals.”

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, added: “With the huge rise in retail theft and the continued impact of violence and abuse on retail colleagues, we welcome the announcement of increased police patrols and local action to tackle town centre crime and anti-social behaviour.

“We must stamp out this scourge of crime up and down the country, and this announcement is certainly a step in the right direction.”

The APCC joint leads for business and retail crime, Katie Bourne OBE, PCC for Sussex, and Andy Dunbobbin, North Wales PCC, said the strategy was an “acknowledgement of the urgent need to focus on tackling unacceptable levels of shop theft and violence against retail workers”.

“We are delighted that the success of the PCC-led Pegasus partnership of retailers, Home Office and police has been recognised and is being built upon,” they said.

“Through the work of Pegasus and policing’s Opal team, a hugely effective, data-led and intelligence-sharing approach has been developed that focuses on organised retail crime gangs with greater police and retailer working at its heart.”

Jason Towse, managing director, Business Services, at Mitie said the strategy has been developed to “fuse industry knowledge and data with policing powers”.

“With momentum building as towns across the country rally behind this initiative, the intelligence shared will inform a collaborative approach across regions and enable the right interventions to be deployed to break the cycle of offending,” he said.

“Together, our actions will deter potential offenders, ensure criminals face consequences and ultimately create safer, thriving communities.”

Anthony Hemmerdinger, managing director, Boots, said: “Retail theft alongside intimidation and abuse of our team members is unacceptable, so we welcome this additional support from government and the police to strengthen shopworker protection.

“While we continue to invest significantly in schemes to deter and disrupt crime, including our state-of-the-art CCTV monitoring centre and bodycams for our team members in stores, it is only through collaboration with government, police forces, and local communities, that we can ensure high streets feel like welcoming and safe spaces for people to work, shop and visit, all the time.”