Chichester District Community Safety Partnership

We had 130 responses in our recent Community Safety consultation, and we’d like to thank everyone for taking the time to feedback on how safe they feel in their local community. We realise that this may not be reflective of our district as a whole, but it is a good starting point for us to work from.

From the results above, we were able to see the following:

1. You told us Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) was the most prevalent issue for you, including littering, noise and street drinking.

ASB is already a priority for the Chichester District Community Safety Partnership (CSP), and in response we employ a dedicated ASB Caseworker to tackle these issues with other agencies and departments.

We have developed multi-agency security patrols and operations, including ‘Operation Petra’ which focuses on the rail network, to reduce the impact of ASB in our communities and city centre.

On 24 August 2023 we also conducted a day of action in Fishbourne and collected 10 sacks of litter. The day also allowed us, and other partner agencies, to engage directly with a number of residents in the local area and gave us valuable insight into the community. More of these days of action are planned for 2024 and we will update you on these via the Chichester District Council's Facebook, X and Instagram accounts - (all links open in new window).

2. In the consultation, you also told us road safety was a worry, especially speeding. This is another priority that we are already working on, and with Arun District Council, West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service and the Sussex Police Roads Policing team we have set up a Road Safety Action Group which is supporting an anti-speeding campaign across both areas, and will include other, more localised activity to tackle the problem.

3. Drugs and drug dealing were also high up on your list of concerns and we are working in collaboration with Sussex Police to protect the most vulnerable in our communities around drug harm and ensuring safeguards are in place to those who may be being exploited for drug related activity.

We are also supporting Sussex Police around the issue of County Lines drug dealing and sharing intelligence when we have it.

4. You told us rural crime was an issue for the district, and this is also a priority that we are focusing on as a CSP. With this we have been liaising closely with local farmers and the rural crime team at Sussex Police and have made funding available for equipment to tackle rural crime, including trail cameras which will be put in place in areas which we have established as hot spots for this type of theft. Rural crime covers everything from theft of vehicles, such as tractors, quad bikes and other all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), theft of livestock, or rustling, fuel theft and more.

5. Serious violence was also flagged as a concern across West Sussex and we are working with colleagues from Sussex Police and West Sussex County Council to understand what this looks like in Chichester and ensure we respond accordingly to the data and reduce the impact of this crime on our communities, in particular our young people.

Finally, over 50% of you did not know how to engage with the CSP, we are working hard to promote the work we are doing and have had several items in local papers recently, including items on how to stay safe at Christmas and online safety.

We will endeavour to do more public engagement this coming year and promote the best way to contact the CSP, including how to best report any crime or disorder you may have witnessed or experienced.

For the time being, if you need to find out where to report any issues around community safety, you can visit our Chichester District Community Safety Partnership page (opens in new window) on the Chichester District Council website.