Community Safety Expo 24 hears partnership work key to getting crime down
Posted Thursday 29th February
Partnership work leads to success in getting crime down – the key message from the PFCC Essex’s Community Safety Expo 24 held today.
The Expo, at Boreham House, near Chelmsford, was attended by more than 250 representatives of community safety partners, including Essex Police, Essex County Fire and Rescue Service, the Violence and Vulnerability Unit (VVU), charities, community groups and council partners.
Roger Hirst, Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex, told the Expo: “Partnership working is key to our approach – our approach has always been to achieve results with organisations and agencies working with each other.
“We are going to do more of what works. Our success shows we know the things that work and we are going to more of them.”
Among the guests and speakers alongside the PFCC were Anna Firth, MP for Southend West, Chief Constable BJ Harrington of Essex Police, Chief Fire Officer Rick Hylton of Essex County Fire and Rescue Service and Jane Gardner, Deputy PFCC.
Also speaking were knife crime campaigners Quinton Green and Julie Taylor, who spoke of the ongoing need to halt knife crime in our communities.
Among the organisations displaying or hosting activities at the Expo were the SOS Bus, Independent Custody Visitors, Safer Essex Roads Partnership (SERP), Community Speedwatch, Community Safety Partnerships from across the county and the Police and Fire Rescue Bikes.
The event, designed to enhance the potential partnership work of all the organisations present, allowed attendees to speak with each other and make new friends and connections, vital for building safe and secure communities in Essex.
In his closing speech Mr Hirst underlined the successes achieved since 2016 by all the organisations present at the event – anti-social behaviour down by 71%, homicide down 55% and a 70% reduction in drug related knife homicide.
The very latest year-on-year figures to the end of January 2024 show all incidents of anti-social behaviour in Essex down 38.5% with all crime down by 5.9%.
