Crime

A safe West End is essential to a successful West End.

Crime and antisocial behaviour cost businesses time and money. They disrupt trading, affect staff and customers, and undermine confidence in the area.

The West End combines busy visitor streets, late-night trading, theatres, transport hubs, major events and very high footfall within a small area. Problems can move quickly between premises and streets, so businesses need a coordinated response across the whole area.

Safety is not just about responding to individual incidents. It is about understanding where problems are happening, identifying patterns, bringing the right organisations together and making sure issues are followed through.

Our strategic approach

A coordinated response across the West End

Crime and antisocial behaviour do not stop at business or organisational boundaries. We work through the West End Crime Taskforce to bring together the police, council, transport and other relevant organisations around common priorities.

We use evidence from businesses and our teams to help identify repeat offenders, problem locations, emerging threats and recurring issues, supporting a more targeted and coordinated response.

A stronger focus on repeat problems

Our security and street management teams provide an important source of on-the-ground intelligence. We will combine this with incident reports and information from businesses to identify patterns and direct attention towards the problems having the greatest impact.

HOLBA maintains a dedicated presence in the West End Fusion Cell, connecting intelligence from businesses and our teams into the police-led response to repeat offenders, crime hotspots and emerging problems.

Holding public authorities to account

HOLBA cannot police the West End. Our role is to make sure the scale and economic importance of the area is reflected in decisions about policing, enforcement and public services.

We provide evidence and intelligence from businesses and our teams to help shape priorities, make the case for appropriate resources and hold statutory bodies to account for action.

Prevention as well as response

A safer West End requires more than enforcement. We support measures that help businesses and communities prevent problems, improve resilience and create safer streets and spaces.

This includes considering how the design and management of the public realm can contribute to safety, supporting night-time safety and working with partners to address issues affecting vulnerable people.

What this means for businesses

Businesses should not have to work out which organisation is responsible before they can get help.

HOLBA will connect businesses with the wider network of security teams, public authorities and partners working on crime and safety across the West End.

Where we can act directly, we will. Where others have the powers, we will take the issue to them and follow it through.

Recent successes