20 November 2025
An initiative to crack down on crime in Southampton saw police and partnering agencies join together to target offenders and anti-social behaviour in the city/retailers.
Safer Business Action (SaBA) Week, a national campaign coordinated and supported by the National Business Crime Centre (NBCC), aims to tackle crime in the city centre, often resulting in a number of successful arrests and dispersal orders – where individuals are barred from entering the city centre.
The Southampton SaBA Week that ran over three days last week was led by Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary in partnership with the city’s Business Improvement District (BID) GO! Southampton, Southampton City Council and others local stakeholders.
During the day, police teams focused on identifying and targeting the top high-harm offenders in the city while simultaneously working to deter and prevent crime and anti-social behaviour.
This year’s campaign saw:
- Four railway related offences, one of which led to intelligence to assist with the detection of County Lines related activity.
- Plain clothes operation tackling cycle heft across the city centre and Central Railway Station, engaging with retailers to support identification of offenders.
- Multiple businesses and business owners engaged with to provided reassurance and given crime prevention advice.
- Six dispersals orders given
- Twelve arrests for shoplifting, breach of bail, assault on security, sexual assault, criminal damage and assault by beating.
- One member-wide exclusion issued by Southampton Business Crime Partnership
With shoplifting a prolific crime in the area, SaBA Week activity is just one of the initiatives to tackle this issue. Announced earlier this month, the Business Crime Navigator (BCN) programme, introduced by Police and Crime Commissioner Donna Jones in 2022, is set to be rolled out in Southampton this Christmas.
GO! Southampton is part-funding this project along with Police and Crime Commissioner and Southampton City Council. The Society of St James have been commissioned to deliver this service.
Jade McCauley, Operations Manager at GO! Southampton said: “Southampton has a vibrant night life and daytime retail scene. Crime and anti-social behaviour have a big impact on the economy of this city, which is why we are taking action and standing firm against it. Safer Business Action Day is a chance for us combine resources to tackle the most prolific offenders, support our businesses to proactively report and ensure staff feel safe coming to work in the city.”
CI Charlie Ilderton from Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary said: “Tackling business crime takes a collaborative effort – we need everyone to work together to make a difference. We’re very grateful to each of our partners for taking part in Safer Business Action Day this year and showing the public that we’re committed to creating a safer city for everyone.”
Partners collaborating alongside GO! Southampton and Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary are local authority enforcement teams, trading standards, homeless outreach workers, Southampton City Council Community Welfare Wardens, businesses and private security to ensure a well-rounded approach to preventing crime.
