The Essex town of Basildon was featured in the December 2024 edition of Professional Security Magazine, for its deployment of community safety wardens in the town. Hereโs an update.
Labour-led Basildon councilโs cabinet meeting in May considered a report by Cabinet Member for Law, Order and Enforcement, Kerry Smith, Leader of the Independent Group, covering โsafer communitiesโ and โtown centre enforcementโ.
Itโs proposed to create a โSafer Communities Enforcementโ Team. The council already has a Safer Estates Team; described as multi-disciplinary with ASB (anti-social behaviour) officers, Tenancy and Estate Officers, and Waste Enforcement Officers, supported by Environmental Health and Planning when necessary.
As for the community enforcement wardens, while some are already at work and will be re-directed, three additional โSafer Communities Enforcement Officersโ are proposed, hired on a one year contract. According to the report, โAny income generated through the issue and recovery of fixed penalty notices and enforcement income will contribute towards this cost. The aim is for the enforcement to be self-funding, However, there is a risk that enforcement income alone will not meet the cost of the additional resource.โ
PSPO
As the report notes, the council already has a contractor providing litter and waste enforcement across the borough, under a contract that ends in November 2025. Like many towns and cities, Basildon has a borough-wide Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO). Since they began in the mid-2010s, a council usually makes a PSPO for three years; they then lapse or have to be renewed. Usually they cover nuisances that have โa detrimental effect on the quality of lifeโ such as dog mess; and designated officers, whether council staff or private contractors, can have the power to issue fines to offenders. Basildonโs latest began in April and covers โuse of illegal drugs or psychoactive substancesโ, โurination or defecationโ, use of motor vehicles in various named parks and open spaces, use of pony and traps, car cruising, anti-social use of bicycles, and amplifiers in public. To return to the report; it says that enforcement of the PSPO is not within the โenvironmental crimeโ, fines for littering and fly tipping, contract. As is regular with such contracts, the contractor makes its money from the fines, and the council receives about ยฃ60,000 in annual income, โwhich primarily goes towards the cost of administering prosecution case files and as a result the service operates at net nil cost to the councilโ.
That the town has a Womenโs Safety Charter brought out that some areas within the town centre โsuch as the bus station and underpasses are places women and girls do not feel safe. This is due to a range of concerns with the both the built environment and displayed behaviours such as anti-social use of bicycles, large groups congregating, and street drinkersโ. A theme of the report is that perception โ fear of crime โ is a factor in its own right, while peopleโs fears may not tally with what the authorities know about crime and nuisances. The report says that โknife crime continues to be the top concern for residents for the second year in a row, highlighting the continued negative perception of safety in the borough. This is despite reductions in serious violence offences; however, we recognise the disparity between perception and actual crime data.โ
In more detail, while most, 75 per cent of residents feel safe in the high street in daylight hours, only 37pc of residents feel safe after dark. The report admits โa high perception of the fear of crime across the boroughโ. Knife carrying is a concern not only for adults but young people, and it remains their top concern, closely followed by worries of being exploited by gangs: โOften this fear and perception of violence causes young people to feel the need to protect themselves sometimes by carrying weapons.โ
The report spoke of โtaking a zero-tolerance approach to addressing issuesโ, whether through tenancy enforcement or using the PSPO โto tackle the most prolific negative behavioursโ. Basildon was among places in Essex to get Safer Streets grants under the previous Conservative government, latterly funnelled through the Essex Conservative Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC) Roger Hirst. On ASB, the report pointed to recent work to improve the public realm; โincreased lighting, planting and wayfindingโ. The report suggested that general economic regeneration of the town centre will lead to growth in footfall and improved safety by day and night. Echoing that wider approach to tackling crime, proposed are โdays of actionโ on estates which will include tackling waste in front gardens, waste enforcement, HMOs (housing in multiple occupation, and tenancy fraud checks. Likewise the council, police and the Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) will look at โthematic issuesโ and โshared approachesโ to trade waste non-compliance, and littering. That might means who pays for what.
Metrics
If the authorities seek to put to rest peopleโs fears for their safety outdoors, they have to point to something, whether a tidier, calmer public realm or statistics. In other words, metrics are all-important. According to the report, they will include โadvice provided to residentsโ, notices issued (across all legislation), PSPO breaches identified, powers available to the authorities against the anti-social, such as โCommunity Protection Warningsโ and โCommunity Protection Noticesโ, and as for tenants such things as โthe number of tenants engaged withโ and โtenancy checks completedโ.
Allied with metrics, and what confidence residents have in the authorities, is how, and how easily, people can raise concerns. The report considers that a dedicated phone line for reporting would be expensive, โand would also not be the chosen channel for communication for most residentsโ. The report is more hopeful about the councilโs Our Streets app that could be tweaked to allow the reporting of dumped rubbish, missed collections, tree management, street cleansing and abandoned vehicles and the like. โOnce registered, residents do not have to keep inputting their information into the app as itโs saved, the app is user friendly and residents can use it to upload photos of the issues and pinpoint specific locations where the issues are, residents will also receive updates when the matter is resolved,โ the report adds.
Centre review
The council commissioned the urban designers DK-CM to carry out a town centre safety review. According to the report, this identified โthat a targeted community warden resource would assist in making the town centre feel saferโ. To describe Basildon briefly, as a 1960s new town built to house east Londoners, its buildings are very much of that period and could do with renewal; quite apart from the general malaise of town centres, due to social changes such as online shopping. The report details that wardensโ body-camera, radio and phone could be funded from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, a project of the Boris Johnson-era Conservative Government.
Summing up
According to the report, a โholistic multi-faceted approachโ will not only manage nuisance and anti-social behaviour. โThis approach will also educate residents in the borough to ensure that behaviours and their associated impacts are understood. Where behaviour continues a programme of appropriate notices and fines are in place to financially encourage behaviour improvement.โ
Public space CCTV
As for public realm CCTV, Basildon town centre has 57 cameras besides 12 cameras in the bus station, which can all be monitored from the Basildon Centre. The 28 CCTV cameras at Westgate shopping centre (bought by the council last year) โhowever cannot be monitored at the Basildon Centreโ, the councilโs base, by its staff. This poses a risk, the report admits, as the cameras โare not of good qualityโ, although the report didnโt propose to do anything about it for now and rather proposed to leave it โas part of the overhaul of the CCTV provisionโ. Staff at Westgate can monitor the Westgate cameras, though โthere is limited opportunity to monitor their performance and complianceโ. Likewise the report sees potential for the 12 CCTV cameras in Basildon Market to be monitored by the council staff, because in May the council took over Basildon Town Centre Management Company (BTCM), meaning the council has control of the town centre โassetsโ such as car parks, bus station and the market. That move in the words of Labour council leader Gavin Callaghan โputs us firmly in the driving seat of regenerationโ.
Meanwhile, the report admits an โad hoc approach to monitoring of the CCTV imagesโ. The report calls the Security Office in the Basildon Centre โnot the most advantageous location for CCTVโ, and suggests relocation (at some point). Security officers work alone therefore breaks are covered by โfacilities assistantsโ, when all cameras and radios are switched off. A full operating control room would have at least two members of staff. The council says itโs reviewing CCTV monitoring by July 2026 โ with a view to โproviding a continuous 24-hour monitoring of the town centreโ.
Basildon council has awarded a CCTV maintenance contract to Clearview Communications.
Photo by Mark Rowe: PSPO sign, Basildon town centre.
