Small Retailers in Deprived Areas
Best practice Reading
SRDA Good Practice Summary
Coronation Square, Reading - considering the wider retail
environment
The Coronation Square project aimed to use external CCTV and environmental redesign/improvements to tackle property crime and anti-social behaviour (ASB) problems surrounding a small parade of shops, which served a local council housing estate.
Intelligence/Context of the scheme
The scheme targeted a parade of eleven shops that were located around a tarmac area. A low-level wall, which people used as seating, surrounded part of this retail area. The layout of the retail area meant that youths congregated on the low-level wall and also played football on the tarmac in the middle of the shops, which caused nuisance to the retailers and customers, especially when the footballs hit the shop shutters. The youths were also said to be the cause of criminal damage to the shops and anti-social behaviour within the surrounding area.
Across the road from the parade of shops is a green that houses a recently installed youth shelter and a set of goal posts, which offers an alternative place for the youths to meet and play football.
The area was not targeted solely through analysis of crime statistics, which were in fact relatively low. Instead, local businesses were also consulted to identify the problems that they faced. This method allowed the project team to better understand the range of crime and disorder problems that the area was suffering and in particular to learn about the scale of the youth nuisance problem which would have not been accurately reflected in the crime statistics alone. This disorder was leading to a decline in customers, as local residents were increasingly reluctant to visit the parade after dark, threatening the viability of vital services at the centre of the local community.
Interventions
The SRDA interventions installed in Coronation Square complemented other pre-existing initiatives. For example, most retail premises already had basic target hardening equipment, such as security shutters and some protection against ram raids. There had also been a series of youth provision initiatives in the local community, including an outreach worker and the recent installation of the youth shelter and goal posts on the green. Therefore, rather than target individual retail premises, the SRDA interventions aimed to improve the security and appearance of the wider retail area, in an attempt to tackle youth nuisance.
The following table shows the SRDA interventions and their anticipated outcomes.
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Intervention |
Anticipated outcome |
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External CCTV (4 cameras linked to the town’s central control room) |
The increased surveillance from the CCTV acts as deterrent as potential offenders think that there is a chance of them being caught on camera committing an offence and then prosecuted as a result. The increased surveillance can also act as a reassurance for retailers and customers |
|
Removal of low level wall and replacing it with bollards |
Prevents youths from congregating on wall, and the bollards will maintain the protection against ram raiding |
|
Moving the benches from the retail area onto the green |
Prevents youths from congregating on the benches facing the shops and makes the green more accessible for all to use |
|
Breaking up the tarmac area in the middle of the shopping area with raised planted beds |
Aimed to tackle the problems associated with the football games outside shops, and to improve the overall ‘liveability’ of the area by making it "cleaner, greener and safer" (Police member of the project team, January 2004) |
These interventions were well targeted to tackle the specific local problems, and complemented the existing youth provision initiatives, encouraging young people to spend time on the green, rather than outside the shops.
Implementation and Involvement
A multi-agency project team managed the scheme, which meant that various fields of experience, knowledge and expertise could be drawn upon. The police representatives within the team were responsible for the crime prevention measures and an initiative manager from the local council was responsible for the external CCTV. The local Councillor for the area also became actively involved in building support for the project, by consulting with the retailers and using his pre-existing community website to promote the scheme and share information.
The project team and the local councillor built up regular contact with all the retailers, especially with one particular business that had previously used the low-level wall to display stock, to prevent the retailer becoming disengaged with the scheme. This worked well as the owner of this business then became a key stakeholder in the scheme, passing on and explaining information to other retailers.
This level of initial contact with the retailers proved crucial when an originally proposed intervention had to be changed. The retailers had asked for their current shutters to be upgraded to soundproof shutters in order to prevent the disruption from the football games. However, the project team felt that the existing shutters were working satisfactorily to prevent crime and the new shutters proved to be prohibitively expensive. Therefore, it was decided that environmental improvement work would be the most efficient way of tackling the youth nuisance problem, and because of the good relationships that had been fostered, the crime reduction adviser and the councillor were able to build support for their revised plans.
In addition, to try and involve the whole community with the scheme, the two most appropriate planting designs (assessed from a crime prevention perspective) were posted on the community website. This gave both the retailers and the local residents the opportunity to choose their favourite design.
This scheme, unlike many other retail crime reduction projects, did not focus on upgrading the security of individual premises via target hardening. Instead, due to the continued levels of consultation and involvement with all stakeholders, the project team was able to consider the problems within the wider retail environment, in order to develop a solution that would benefit the local community. This is important as schemes that focus narrowly on the security of individual premises often neglect wider factors such as the attractiveness of the shopping area or customer safety, which can affect the viability of local businesses.
Outcomes and Sustainability
There is evidence to suggest that the interventions implemented by the scheme have had a positive impact on crime, as the pre-post implementation survey showed a notable reduction in the retailers experience of crime and disorder.
In terms of business viability, evidence from the project team suggests that because youths no longer congregate outside the shops and cause disruption, one business had made significantly fewer calls to the police about youth nuisance outside the premises at night.
In summary, the environmental improvements implemented by this project were well linked with the existing youth provisions, and together both initiatives have made a promising start in tackling the levels of anti-social behaviour in the area.
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Key Good Practice
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Contact Details
For further information about this project, please contact:
Garry Tallett Crime Reduction Advisor Thames Valley Police Reading Police Station Castle Street Reading RG1 7TH 0118 953 6174 garry.tallett@thamesvalley.pnn.police.uk Dave Parker Force Training Manager 0118 9325700 Dave.Parker@thamesvalley.pnn.police.ukAuthors: Victoria Baker and Sally Parkinson, Home Office, Research Development and Statistics Directorate, June 2004.
Last update: 25 November 2004