While numerous guarding firms are working in the niche field of providing on-street patrollers for business improvement districts (BIDs), among the more high profile – because of the outspoken founder and CEO, former Met Police man David McKelvey, and their deployments for BIDs in central London such as Vauxhall and Fitzrovia (pictured), and their bright red uniform caps – is My Local Bobby. The service has notably been spreading beyond London, to Ipswich and Milton Keynes; and this summer further north.
It’s launched in the busy Warwickshire tourist destination of Stratford-upon-Avon, for the town’s BID. The BID says it’s for town centre safety, to support local businesses, and provide visible, approachable reassurance for residents and visitors alike. Operating five days a week, the patrollers wearing body-worn video provide high-visibility patrols across the town centre, including the Maybird Retail Park to the north of the town centre.
The BID like many others already runs an information sharing app (DISC) and radio scheme for businesses to talk to one another. Besides having a crime element to their job, including handling antisocial behaviour, as in other places the patrollers will engage with rough sleepers and the charities who support them, to offer signposting and referral to appropriate services.
BID manager Aaron Corsi said: “The BID business plan made a commitment to bring back a uniformed presence in the town centre and My Local Bobby fulfil that commitment.”
Meanwhile the city centre BID It’s in Nottingham has brought in My Local Bobby, in response the BID says to feedback from city centre retailers. Patrollers there are operating six days a week. The Nottingham BID offers the Alert! information sharing app and a radio scheme.
About the firm
My Local Bobby also offers ‘rapid response units‘ driving blue and white liveried vehicles for ‘residential beats’. Visit https://mylocalbobby.co.uk/. The firm’s plain clothes ‘prolific crimes team‘ officers that combat retail theft, typically in London, are a staple of the Channel 5 documentary series At War with the Law.
