Member Article

Teesside welcomes new community safety partnership

A former policeman is calling on business people to work together to support community safety partnership projects.

Brian Neale, who has more than ten years of experience helping to reduce crime in the community, believes that businesses need to make keeping staff and premises a priority, especially in difficult economic times.

While the type of crime varies from sector to sector, many businesses are facing the threat of credit card fraud, identity theft and computer hacking, as well as ‘traditional’ criminal activities including shoplifting, violence and vandalism,

Now Mr Neale is consulting with a broad cross section of businesses in the Tees Valley area on behalf of Safe In Tees Valley to identify which crimes present the biggest threats.

He commented: “After more than 15 years working with agencies and organisations throughout the North East, SITV has accumulated extensive experience of developing innovative, closely
targeted crime prevention programmes- then securing funding to deliver them.”

Feedback from businesses will inform content and strategy of a new website, which will create a link between businesses, communities and relevant bodies to allow them to discuss problems and solutions as well as providing a gateway to training, advice and support.

Mr Neale added: “Feedback from businesses will determine which crimes are prioritised and how they are tackled, so we want to hear from firms of all types and sizes. A simple response form, that will take only a few minutes to complete and send, is available on the SITV website at
www.safeinteesvalley.org/businesscrime.”

The project has already been welcomed by local shopkeepers, including Steve Cochrane, who commented: “While the police have been excellent in our case, any proactive information we receive through electronic means, whether SMS, MMS, web or other medium would be welcomed by our team. “

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .