4 hours Ago
I’ve now been your MP for just over six6 months, and it’s been a whirlwind of activity in both Westminster and here in Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven. In this week’s column, I want to focus on a concern I’m hearing loud and clear across my constituency: the rise in crime and anti-social behaviour. I’ll also cover a really important vote in Parliament this week on the Renters’ Rights Bill, which will make a huge difference to many people in my constituency and across Sussex.
Tackling anti-social behaviour. I was struck by an Argus article over the New Year highlighting that crime was rising more quickly in Sussex than in London or anywhere else in the South East. The main reason was the incredibly high increase – 48 per cent% – in shoplifting.
This underlines what many local businesses, shopworkers and residents have been telling me: that shoplifting and anti-social behaviour are now a daily occurrence in many of our communities. To give one example, my team and I recently spoke to businesses in St James’ Street, the bustling and vibrant high street at the western edge of my constituency. Of the first ten shops we visited, nine said that their staff had suffered physical attacks at work and all ten said that shoplifting in their stores and anti-social behaviour ion St James’ Street now happened at least once a day.
I’ve never accepted that this type of crime is “low-level”, “minor” or something we should tolerate. In pretty much every constituency surgery, I see examples of people whose lives are being ruined by anti-social behaviour (ASB). Even offences like the recent vandalism of the Roderick Avenue toilets in Peacehaven – which happily our local Labour councillors have now refurbished – can leave people feeling unsafe and undermine pride in our community.
To tackle this rise in ASB, I’m calling for action in three areas. First, we need more – and more targeted – policing on our streets. The Government’s plan to recruit 13,000 neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers (PCSOs) is hugely welcome and will help to relieve the incredible strain many police forces are under.
But I also want to see more police being deployed to tackle anti-social behaviour “hot-spots” in our communities and areas of rising crime. St James’ Street in Kemptown is a perfect example of this. Last week, I met with the Police and Crime Commissioner, Katy Bourne, to make the case for St James’ becoming a designated ASB “hot-spot” area.
This would mean an increased police presence in the area, more patrols and greater police focus on St James’ – in the same way extra resources are already available at the Clock Tower and Churchill Square in central Brighton. I know this would reassure local residents and businesses in Kemptown and I hope the PCC will now look at this. Secondly, we need better use of technology and smarter licensing laws.
I would like to see areas like St James’ – where alcohol misuse is a particular problem – become “no street drinking zones” and for local councils to look again at how they can use licensing laws to better support residents and businesses. I’d also like to see additional and visible CCTV around stores that are repeatedly targeted by shoplifters in order to help deter and prosecute offenders. Thirdly, I’m calling for the PCC to launch an offender-to-rehab scheme to help also tackle the causes of rising crime.
Businesses have told me time and again that much of the shoplifting, theft and ASB we’re now seeing on our streets is being committed by the same people, who are often trapped in a cycle of addiction and criminality and, even if caught, are back on the street the same day. If we’re serious about tackling ASB, we have to break this cycle and provide pathways for people to change their behaviour and turn their lives around. In the West Midlands, a very successful offender-to-rehab scheme was launched in 2021 and was shown to help divert people from offending, reduce crime and save local businesses money.
So, I’ve asked the PCC to look at this example and work with me to introduce a similar scheme in Sussex. I’ve also raised this in the House of Commons directly with the Policing Minister. Of course, turning around rising crime and ASB on our streets won’t happen overnight.
But we need to face up to the scale of this challenge and put in place a series of measures that work for residents, business and local communities. Renters’ Rights As I never tire of saying, the housing crisis is the single biggest issue in my constituency. It makes up around two-thirds of the casework I receive: from homelessness to overcrowding to overpricing.
So, this week I was delighted to vote for the Government’s Renters’ Rights Bill, which will make a real difference to the thousands of people in my constituency living in the private rented sector. The Bill will finally ban “no fault” evictions – which is now the single biggest cause of homelessness in Brighton – it will raise standards and protections for renters, and it will prevent landlords charging unfair rent up front or excessive rent rises. There’s so much more we need to do to tackle the housing crisis – and I will write more on this in weeks to come – but this is a great start.
Chris Ward is the MP for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven.
