Community safety

The council's vision and duty

The Sustainable Community Strategy vision is

`Warwick District, a great place to live, work and visit, where we aspire to build sustainable, safe, stronger and healthier communities'

The Safer Communities aim is `protecting our communities from harm with emphasis on the prevention of incidents, whilst focusing on the most vulnerable to make them feel safer

The Council has a duty to:

work in partnership with the Police, County Council, Police Authority, Fire & Rescue Service, Probation Service and the Primary Care Trust to develop and implement strategies to tackle crime and disorder and the misuse of drugs in the district
ensure that it does not contribute to increased crime and anti-social behaviour through the delivery of its services.

The Council's Community Safety Team helps to coordinate this work to tackle crime and disorder in the District.

Adopting a preventative culture in our service design and delivery
Delivering quality services and utilising all the powers available to us to make communities feel safer (such as licensing, CCTV and parking enforcement)
Consulting and involving the community in identifying crime and disorder problems and solutions.
Coordinating actions to address the concerns of local people
Ensuring that the concerns of Community Forums inform the picture of crime and disorder in the district, South Warwickshire & Warwickshire.
Working with Stratford-on-Avon District Council to jointly lead on tackling anti-social behaviour
Working together with Stratford-on-Avon District Council to drive and administer Safer South Warwickshire - Community Safety Partnership
Challenging the responsible authorities and cooperative bodies to do all they can to reduce crime and disorder and the fear of crime.

Contact the Community Safety Team

The Community Safety Team can be contacted by emailing us at communitysafety@warwickdc.gov.uk or telephoning us on 01926 456021.

For enquiries relating to anti-social behaviour phone 01926 456010 or email antisocialbehaviour@warwickdc.gov.uk

Levels of crime and disorder in Warwick district

In 2009/10 there were 8,129 recorded crimes in the district. This is the lowest total for 10 years with 1,584 fewer crimes than the previous 12 month period. In 2010/11 there was a total of 8,147 crimes, an increase of 0.2%. In the same period:

Violent Crime was up 5% to 1,391 from 1,324
Serious Acquisitive Crime is at it's lowest ever level down to 1,472 from 1,780 (17%)
Burglary is at it's lowest ever level at 449 down from 606 (26.%)
Vehicle crime is at it's lowest ever level at 971 from 1104 (12%). Though there were 31 more thefts of a vehicle, thefts from a vehicle was down by 164.
Robbery was at it's lowest ever level at 52 down from 67 (22%)
Criminal damage was 1,530 from (1.4%) up from 1,551

There were 6,334 reported anti-social behaviour incidents which is up 256 on the best ever performance of 6,078.

In 2009/10 Fear of crime levels are the lowest for 10 years with significant reductions recorded. Local people were asked how concerned they were and the figures for those very or fairly concerned were:

being physically attacked by a stranger 33.2%, in 2005/06 this figure was 38.1%
their home broken into and something stolen 45.1%, in 2000/01 this figure was 64.1%
having their car stolen 32.2%, in 2000/01 this figure was 51.8%

Up to date crime figures for Warwick District can be found on the Warwickshire Police Local Crime Mapping website. Information on crime levels in South Warwickshire can be found on the Warwickshire Observatory website.

2011/12 priorities

Tackling anti-social behaviour is the Warwick District Council Community Safety priority and together with Stratford-on-Avon District Council take the lead in tackling this priority in South Warwickshire.

Based on the findings of the Strategic Assessment the priorities for Safer South Warwickshire ( Community Safety Partnership) are tackling violent crime, tackling anti-social behaviour, tackling alcohol abuse and tackling those causing most harm.

Warwickshire Police & Safer Neighbourhoods

Warwickshire Police introduced local policing teams across Warwickshire in 2006. There are eight Safer Neighbourhood Areas in Warwick district based on district council wards: