Helping to maintain a safe Vale

• Help to maintain, or further reduce, low levels of crime and anti-social behaviour
• Reduce the fear of crime and anti-social behaviour

The Vale is a safe place in which to live, work and visit and overall crime levels are very low. We work with a wide range of organisations through the Vale Community Safety Partnership so that we all contribute in a co-ordinated way. Our aim is to build on the reductions in crime that have been achieved over recent years and to support a community in which people feel safe, regardless of age gender or ethnic background.

We want to reduce the fear of crime by making sure that local people are aware that the Vale has very low levels of crime. We will do this in a number of ways. For example, we will continue to develop and improve the Vale Nightsafe scheme which involves working with licensees and others to reduce town centre violence. The work of neighbourhood action groups will also be important in reducing the fear of crime. A quarterly community safety newsletter will help to spread the message, as will running a number of specific crime reduction campaigns.

One of the things we will do over the next four years is to reduce irresponsible drinking and behaviour by helping to develop and implement a range of existing and new initiatives. Test purchasing exercises use 14 or 15 year olds, supported by local authority officers and the police, to see if licensed premises will sell alcohol to underage customers. If premises fail the test, fixed penalty notice fines are served on staff. For repeat offences licences to sell alcohol can be revoked. The young people¿s targeted alcohol project is being piloted in Wantage and it targets under 16s who are repeatedly caught drinking alcohol in public. They and their parents then have to attend an awareness raising workshop which highlights the health risks and potential safety consequences of drinking.

CCTV has a part to play in local crime reduction. We are committed to support and develop the use of CCTV in the Vale. Where the need for new cameras is identified we will develop a business case to gain funding for future developments.