
Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Danielle Stone will set out a plan to bring agencies together to tackle issues such as street drinking and retail theft in Wellingborough town centre.
Danielle and Ivan visited the centre to speak with retail owners and members of the public in a visit yesterday (January 23).
The Chief and Commissioner saw first hand the extent of street drinking in the town centre, with PCSOs discarding alcohol and issuing penalty notices to people flouting the Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) which bans drinking alcohol in the town centre.
They then visited stores including Bewiched, Nationwide and B&M in the town centre, before heading to the nearby Morrisons supermarket – where the shop manager detailed the extent of anti-social behaviour and theft being committed by local youths, as well as abuse towards staff.
Danielle Stone said: “We’ve spoken to a lot of retailers this week, and I have listened to what they wanted to tell me about what is happening in our town centres.
“I’m worried about the level of retail crime in some areas – some of it coming from organised gangs, some from local people and some from young people shoplifting and abusing staff.
“We need to find out how we can address the root causes of that kind of behaviour, and ultimately stop it happening. We do not want people to feel intimidated when they visit our town centres, we want people to feel safe.”
This was the second visit to one of the county’s main town centres this week, with Danielle and Ivan having gone to Kettering town centre on Monday (January 20), where they discovered many similar problems.
Ivan Balhatchet said: “As the new Chief Constable I have been clear that I will be visible to communities across Northamptonshire.
“I have seen some positive partnership working during the visits to Wellingborough and Kettering this week, but obviously there are issues with our town centres – and that’s across Northamptonshire. The main issues that have been consistently raised are street drinking, shoplifting and anti-social behaviour.
“We will work with partners to look at what we can do to improve that situation and to clamp down on behaviour that makes it unpleasant for people who are visiting the town centres.
“We also want to make retailers feel more confident about reporting thefts to the Police, and that is something that I will be looking to improve.”
During their visit to Wellingborough, Danielle and Ivan were accompanied by specialist staff from North Northamptonshire Council, as well as Wellingborough town councillor and Deputy Mayor Viv Wilkinson (picture below, on the left).
Speaking after the visit, Cllr Wilkinson said: “It was good that the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, and the Chief Constable, took time to walk around the town centre and see the issues for themselves.
“Some of the things we all heard were shocking, particularly from the manager of Morrisons where there are several issues involving young people – and we really need everybody to work together to try and improve this situation.”
Danielle Stone added: “We need a joint response, and I will be calling a multi-agency partnership meeting to focus on these issues and see what we can do in both Wellingborough and Kettering.
“Policing plays an important part in this, and I will be working with the Chief Constable to look at what we can do operationally. But we need to put in measures to prevent crime from happening in the first place, and that requires partnership working – and I am determined to bring our agencies together to tackle these issues head on.”