Thousands of shoppers and businesses will see increased police presence, stronger prevention and enforcement action by police and councils to support safer high streets this summer.

Over recent years street crime has sky-rocketed, with theft from the person more than doubling between December 2022 and December 2024, and there has been record levels of shop theft, up by more than 60% - with offenders increasingly using violence and abuse against shopworkers.

Bespoke local action plans

This marks a key step in delivering the government’s Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, which from July will see named, contactable officers in every community, increased peak time patrols in town centres and anti-social behaviour leads in every force.

Commissioned by the Home Secretary, Police and Crime Commissioners across England and Wales have developed bespoke local action plans with police, businesses and local councils to crackdown on crime this summer. The aim is to support town centres to be vibrant places where people want to live, work and spend time, and restore faith in community policing after years of declining police officer presence on Britain’s streets. These plans include increased visible town centre policing and ramping up the use of targeted enforcement powers against troublemakers – including banning perpetrators from hotspots.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said, "High streets and town centres are the very heart of our communities. Residents and businesses have the right to feel safe in their towns. But the last government left a surge in shop theft, street crime and anti-social behaviour which has left too many town centres feeling abandoned.

It’s time to turn this round, that’s why I have called on police forces and councils alike to work together to deliver a summer blitz on town centre crime to send a clear message to those people who bring misery to our towns that their crimes will no longer go unpunished. The fact that 500 towns have signed up shows the strength of feeling on this issue.

Through our Safer Streets Mission and Plan for Change, we are putting officers back on the beat where you can see them and making our town centres safe again."

The summer initiative will also support young people, making sure there are activities across the 500 towns for young people to be involved in throughout the holidays.

Tackling Retail Crime Together Strategy

The Home Office, alongside police, retailers and industry are also launching a new Tackling Retail Crime Together Strategy, which will use shared data to assist in disrupting not just organised criminal gangs, but all types of perpetrators including prolific offenders who are stealing to fund an addiction and ‘opportunist’ offenders.

Shop theft and the abuse of shopworkers has become an endemic problem for Britain’s high streets with many shopworkers victimised in the same communities where they live. The government is set to introduce a new law to protect shop workers from this vile abuse.

Record levels of shop theft have been driven not just by organised crime gangs but drug addiction for some prolific offenders and opportunism for others. The new Tackling Retail Crime Together Strategy will bring together multiple sources of data from industry and policing to create a single avenue for intelligence to help better target and respond to perpetrators. Police and retailers will also team up with security firms and local communities to locate the highest harm areas and identify the role offender management programmes can play in breaking the cycle of crime for repeat offenders.

Jason Towse, Managing Director, Business Services, Mitie said, "We all deserve to live and work in a safe environment and the Tackling Retail Crime Together Strategy has been developed to fuse industry knowledge and data with policing powers. With momentum building as towns across the country rally behind this initiative, the intelligence shared will inform a collaborative approach across regions and enable the right interventions to be deployed to break the cycle of offending. Together, our actions will deter potential offenders, ensure criminals face consequences and ultimately create safer, thriving communities."