Somerset West Businesses Against Crime has launched its Safer Premises Initiative.
The aim: to help businesses as diverse as farms, factories, warehouses and schools, protect their property. Safer Premises Initiative (SPI) has two levels of membership, standard and premium. Standard members receive access to the SPI intranet, crime prevention advice, discounted training and an account with Immobilise, a free national property register. Premium membersalso get the SmartWater property marking product.
Taunton-based SWBAC Scheme Co-ordinator, Andy Sharman says: โThis is the first initiative of its kind to look outside of our town centres and offer other business sectors the support they need in preventing crimes against them. Through our innovative partnership approach of working with statutory agencies and commercial partners, we have created the strongest available deterrent to help protect all businesses within the Somerset West district. It is through the co-operation of the partnership and business members, that we can send a strong message that criminals targeting the area will find it a lot tougher to get away without detection โ
SWBAC is the first crime reduction partnership to take delivery of Littoralisโ latest information sharing system, Safer Premises Intranet. Littoralisโ secure intranets for information sharing are now used by business crime reduction partnerships around the UK. Charlie Newman, managing director of Brighton-based Littoralis, said: โWeโre the leading provider of specialist intranet systems for town- and city-centre crime reduction partnerships. Mainly theyโre being used to support the work of business groups targeting shoplifting in the โday time economyโ and antisocial behaviour in the โnight-time economyโ around pubs and clubs. But areas further out from the centre of towns and cities have different problems, and thatโs why we developed SPI.โ
Scheme organisers point out that in less populous areas, where policing is less visible, risks include criminal damage, theft of plant and machinery, metal theft and joyriding, perhaps kerb crawling and prostitution. The victims are less likely to be shops and pubs.
According to Charlie Newman, while places like these may have CCTV and security personnel, whatโs missing is the means of communicating intelligence, to the police, and enabling police to easily and quickly communicate back to the businesses, schools, farms and others. โThatโs what SPI does. Itโs a low cost, secure and highly efficient way of improving the two-way exchange between police and local businesses and other organisations, allowing SPI members to report incidents online, browse images of โmost activeโ individuals, access listings of lost or stolen plant and machinery and much else besides. For the police itโs an invaluable generator of excellent intelligence and provides a really effective communications platform with a community that isnโt always so easy to communicate with because of its wide geographical spread.โ
SmartWater Chief Executive, Phil Cleary, said: โThe most important part of securing a conviction for theft is establishing an irrefutable link between the stolen material, the criminals and the scene of the crime. SmartWater does just that, providing robust forensic evidence that allows Police to make criminals more accountable for their actions. To date SmartWater has secured over 1,000 criminal convictions and maintains a 100% conviction rate in court.โ
Somerset West Business Against Crime is an independent not-for-profit organisation that works alongside the businesses, the police, and local authorities to reduce the impact of crime against the community. Created in 2011, following the merger of Taunton Retailers Against Crime and the Bridgwater and Burnham Security Group, the partnership was won a number of awards for its work. Visit –
