14 July 2022
GO! Southampton is joining forces with Hampshire Constabulary and other local partners for a Safer Business Action Day this weekend.
On Saturday 16th July, Southampton’s Business Improvement District (BID), Hampshire Constabulary and local authority enforcement teams, along with businesses and private security companies, will come together to patrol the city centre, targeting high harm offenders as well as focusing on deterring and preventing crime.
During the day, the partners will also be asking staff that work in relevant businesses to complete a staff survey about safety at work, so that they can provide future support about ways crime can be prevented in the workplace in future.
The Safer Business Action Day, which will be held from 10am-4pm, is part of a national scheme by the National Business Crime Centre (NBCC).
GO! Southampton approached the NBCC to host this important day for the city – part of the BID’s ongoing work through its Southampton Business Crime Partnership to create a safer working environment for Southampton’s businesses and a more attractive place for residents and visitors.
Stephen Manion, Executive Director at GO! Southampton said: “We want to ensure Southampton is a safe place for our businesses, as well as for its residents and visitors. By getting together with the National Business Crime Centre, we, along with Hampshire Constabulary and our other partners, now have a designated day to help reduce crime and anti-social behaviour.
“We represent over 630 levy payers made up of business representatives from a range of sectors across the city and one of our main roles is to create an environment where our members can thrive. The city centre must be a safe, clean and a great place in which to do business.”
Inspector Charlie Ilderton from the Southampton Central Neighbourhood Policing Team said: “We are excited to be supporting the day of action. We continue to work closely with the Southampton Business Crime Partnership, sharing information and targeting those that cause the most harm within the City Centre. Violence against shop workers is unacceptable and should never be tolerated, we hope that the day of action provides an opportunity to highlight this, reassures the public and shop workers that we are being proactive when it comes to tackling this type of incident. We support the #ShopKind initiative. We will continue to work with our partners to come up with long term solutions to reducing antisocial behaviour and crime.”
Superintendent Patrick Holdaway from the National Business Crime Unit said: “Violence and abuse again shopworkers are never acceptable. The National Business Crime Centre has been working with key stakeholders in police, retail and business crime reduction partnerships and security providers to deliver a series of ‘days of action’ to support the National ShopKind campaign to protect shop workers, and deter, disrupt and detain persistent and prolific offenders.”
GO! Southampton, Hampshire Constabulary, local authority enforcement teams, businesses and private security will take part on the day. Private security companies TSS, Lodge and Mitie, will also have additional staff members working on the day at their partner businesses including ASDA, Boots, Greggs and Primark.
A joint approach by police, business, private security and BCRPs/BIDs, the Safer Business Action Days are designed to focus resources into a designated location to create a significant impact to reduce crime.
Saturday will be the third of its kind, following Safer Business Action Days in the cities of Birmingham and London earlier in the year.
GO! Southampton is committed to ensuring Southampton is a safe place to work, live and visit, and this is just one of the initiatives the BID team have arranged to tackle crime in the area.