The stakes are only getting higher for the renewal of Britain’s high streets and town and city centres, which includes both physical protection through street furniture and bollards, and patrolling increasingly by hired private security officers. Mark Rowe reviews developments.
In October, Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled the ‘Pride in Place’ programme, which the Labour Government hailed for restoring pride in neighbourhoods. In truth the idea goes back some years, to the Future High Streets Fund set up by the Theresa May Conservative Government in 2018, and was kept up by her successors. Councils would bid for central Government money towards projects to regenerate places. That acknowledged that many town and city centres were ‘struggling’, due to changes in how people shop, work, and enjoy leisure – due to online commerce, only furthered by the covid lockdowns of 2020. Projects typically might include work on the ‘public realm’; or to transport flow.
Framework
A national Plan for Neighbourhoods Framework provides a structure for achieving place-based change. Safety and security is one of eight themes; others include housing, transport, and regeneration of high streets. In other words, there’s little point in spending money on improving a place, if it still has crime or if people feel fearful to go there, whether by day or night, due to crime and a dangerous-feeling streetscape.
Drivers
A separate driver in purely counter-terror terms has been a response to numerous terror attacks, in Britain and abroad, of ‘vehicle as a weapon’ attacks, such as in Nice in 2016 and Westminster Bridge and London Bridge-Borough Market in London in 2017. Numerous cities with ‘crowded places’ even outside the largest cities – such as Bath, York, Winchester and Canterbury that draw year-round tourists – have had bollards fitted, for counter-terror and other reasons. Bradford city centre, for example, has had bollards installed as part of wider investment, including to mark it as the ‘city of culture’ in 2025. As elsewhere, traffic has been driven (pardon the pun) out of the city centre. This serves to make the centre more agreeable for pedestrians. Yet cities have to balance other needs; such as, premises needing deliveries (Bradford only allows loading and unloading outside the business hours of 10.30am to 4.30pm).
Two case studies: Manchester
In October, Manchester City Council released images by the landscape architects LDA Design, of proposed work on Piccadilly Gardens, long notorious as a hot-spot for nuisance behaviour especially at night, drug dealing and concealing of knives, begging and illegal street trading (similar issues in Birmingham city centre featured in the October edition of Professional Security Magazine). The council proposes more lighting, and video surveillance cameras. Council Leader Cllr Bev Craig spoke of a ‘multi-agency blueprint to address issues with crime and anti-social behaviour’. She said: “People tell us they want it cleaned up, brightened up, invested in and made to feel safer.” Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have set up a neighbourhood policing team there; and are taking what they term a problem-solving approach. Yet as reflected on a ‘day of action’ in the area in July, and more routinely, much of the protection there is provided by private security, whether employed by quick service restaurants or retailers; and the Travelsafe patrolling officers on the trams (Piccadilly Gardens is a stop on the network), provided by the contractor Amulet, and SIA-badged. All this was acknowledged by City of Manchester District Commander, Chief Supt David Meeney in October, who credited ‘partners’ and the providing of intelligence by those working around the Gardens. Chief Supt Meeney said: “We remain committed to improving both the perception of Piccadilly Gardens and the public’s sense of safety in the area. However, this is not something we can achieve alone.”
Case study: Wrexham
A regeneration plan was put before Wrexham County Borough Council’s executive board in October. The document admits to ‘decline’ of the city centre, and ‘challenges’ not least about ‘safety and security’ which are rated highly (as in many other places) by Wrexham city centre businesses, as is the wish for a ‘visible uniformed presence’. Like other places, Wrexham used Safer Streets Funding under the Conservative Governments of the early 2020s to employ night-time street marshals. As the plan recalled, the marshals ‘supported the night time economy by providing a uniformed street presence and reassurance to members of the public in key areas of Wrexham town centre’. By day, city centre wardens had a similar role; and as in many places, a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) was created for the city centre aiming at ASB and misuse of substances. However, as the plan admitted, ‘funding for the marshals and town centre wardens was discontinued’ – a chronic issue for such patrol services, that typically run on grants of a year or even shorter, that may well run out. Wrexham has two city centre wardens who ‘provide a high-visibility presence to reassure visitors and help enforce’ the PSPO. As the plan put it, ‘the potential exists to increase the number of officers’.
Hot-spot
North Wales Police indicated that crime has declined in all categories across Wrexham’s city centre “beat area” over the past three years. Yet, the plan added, ‘the city centre remains a hotspot for both crime and anti-social behaviour’; above all the bus station for ASB, and around the pubs of the town centre, and taxi queues late at night, for crime including violence. Besides actual crime, the document admitted to ‘negative’ perceptions, due to (as elsewhere) on-street drinking.
Wrexham bollards
The plan added that to address traffic-related ASB, ‘automatic rise-and-fall bollards have been installed on York Street and High Street, and ‘No Entry’ signs are now in place on 11 roads that previously allowed access to the city centre. With aspirations to grow a safer evening and night-time economy, the ability to re-prioritise pedestrian-use of some public spaces has become increasingly important. Despite the decrease in the total number of crime and antisocial behaviour incidents over the past three years, the public engagement undertaken by the Wrexham City Board indicates that positively influencing perceptions of safety is very important to stakeholders. Negative perceptions could deter people visiting’.
Photo by Mark Rowe: tram entering Piccadilly Gardens, winter evening.
