ASB Incidents Rise on North Yorkshire Coast Despite 60% Fall in One Town Centre Location

A focus on "Hotspot" Policing has lead to a 60 percent fall in anti social behaviour incidents in part of Scarborough Town centre.

Antisocial behaviour takes many forms, from aggressive, noisy or abusive behaviour to neighbourhood disturbances involving drugs, abandoned cars or animals.

45 ASB hotspots were identified across North Yorkshire, one of them being Scarborough's Trafalgar Square.

North Yorkshire Police say the one million pound hotspot policing initiative has reduced incidents of ASB across the county.

Chief Superintendent Fiona Willey says the project is now set to continue for another year.

"We've successfully been awarded further funding this year for the hotspot policing, which we did last year and over 6,000 hours of visibility patrols geo-fenced into small areas that we know that we need to focus on.

It's really impacted when you're there. Positive engagement with the community. So we start to build those capable guardians, as I call them, within those areas to try and then reduce that and social behaviour.

Real positive results.  For each of the areas, city, coast, and county, where we've taken place.

 It's been really impactive and because we've been able to secure the funding again for this year, obviously we're continuing with that. 

It's going to cover some of the nighttime economy as well. "

Project Deployment is a £1m Home Office funded ‘Hotspot Response’ policing initiative, that aims to increase trust and confidence in policing, deter offending, and make people feel safer in the communities they live in.

This additional funding has enabled North Yorkshire Police (NYP) to boost the number of police officers on the streets, with high-visibility police patrols targeting hotspots at key times.

Figures reveal that this proactive approach is delivering positive results:

• 45 ASB hotspots were identified across North Yorkshire
• There was a 13.17 %  overall ASB reduction across the ASB hotspots
• There were 6628 additional hours of high visibility police patrols and
• A total of 14337 extra patrols thanks to Project Deployment

Some of the hotspot areas with the most significant reductions in reported incidents were:

• York Ethel Ward, Haxby area – 76.92% reduction
• York: Foxwood Lane, Acomb area – 61.9% reduction
• Scarborough: Trafalgar Square area – 60.66% reduction
• Malton: Sycamore Avenue, Malton – 59.26% reduction
• Harrogate, Skipton Road - 50% reduction
• Thirsk, Market Place - 50% reduction

Superintendent Victoria Taylor, Head of Local Policing Support at North Yorkshire Police adds:

“Hotspot policing has not only delivered impressive reductions in crime but has also led to tangible results in protecting vulnerable residents.

The feedback from communities across the North Yorkshire Police force region shows that our hard work is being noticed, and that people are feeling safer.”

However, despite the success of the Hotspot Policing project and an overall fall in antisocial behaviour across North Yorkshire over the last 12 months, there has been a slight increase on the Yorkshire Coast.

The latest figures from North Yorkshire Police show a 12 percent fall in the number of incidents reported across the county but a 2 percent increase in the Coast Command area.

Deputy Chief Constable, Scott Bisset says that's due to an increase in incidents in April.

"Over a 12 month period since the beginning of May last year you can see  just a slight increase in the coast command, and that's due to April in particular. So prior to that, we were demonstrating a reduction.

That's probably got something to do with the weather during April and how busy Scarborough and different resorts by the seaside can be. Just more people there, more people out about, busier nighttime economy. 

We've had a  meeting where we've discussed antisocial behaviour across the force, but particularly plans around the coast as we head into the summer, which we would normally have anyway because of the influx of people that go into there, particularly starting from June, kind of the next week or so onwards."