Safer West Sussex Partnership

Between September and October 2023, the six Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) in West Sussex asked residents how safe they felt in their local community. Thanks to you, they received a total of 1,353 responses from residents across the county.

We all agree that the responses may not be representative of all the communities that make up West Sussex, but they did confirm that what the CSPs are working on within their areas already covers the concerns raised in the consultation.

The Safer West Sussex Partnership (SWSP) seeks to add value to the work already undertaken by individual agencies/localities within the partnership and look at overarching issues affecting more than one area that require collaboration to address. This is why we are also reporting back on what we are doing, as the partnership, based on the feedback received through the consultation.

Anti-social driving

Driving - risky or anti-social, was flagged as the top issue in people’s local neighbourhood as part of the consultation. To try and reduce this, we are working alongside the CSPs and Sussex Police to tackle anti-social car meets, which some areas have had sporadic problems with, and the police have also identified sections of road in the county, as well as some private car park areas, which are cause for concern. Residents are encouraged to report any concerns with anti-social driving to Operation Crackdown (opens in new window) which is the county-wide Sussex Safer Roads Partnership initiative.

In some districts and boroughs, there has also been Public Space Protection Orders implemented in ‘hot-spot’ areas to effectively ban anti-social driving. This work sits alongside Sussex Police’s Operation Downsway, where the Roads Policing Team units are deployed across the county to stop drivers and motorcyclists from careless driving; drink and drug driving; not wearing a seatbelt; using a mobile phone and speeding.

Partnership working is integral to delivering long-term road safety and we are currently engaging with police, alongside the CSPs (who have additional locality information which will prove important to police intelligence), and reviewing if there is any problem solving which can be achieved at some of the specific locations where risky or anti-social driving occurs.

Anti-social behaviour

Residents raised anti-social behaviour (ASB) as another key concern and there is a wide range of activity underway to respond to this. District and borough councils have invested in Anti-Social Behaviour Caseworkers to investigate and support victims and residents of ASB. These roles are key in working with other partners, including the police, to mitigate the harm caused by these types of incidents.

In March, the Sussex Police & Crime Commissioner welcomed the Government’s announcement that Sussex has been chosen as a trailblazer for the new ‘Immediate Justice’ pilot and given additional funding to develop this. The Immediate Justice scheme (opens in new window) will see ASB offenders paying back to the community through unpaid work and repairing damage and harm they may have caused.

Looking forward, there is planned work underway to target ASB hotpots and this includes town centres as well as the rail network. Across the partnership there is an intent to reduce the impact of ASB and use all the powers available, however, to do this effectively it is essential that ASB is reported to your local district or borough CSP.

Countywide engagement with young people

As part of our duties within the partnership, we are required to go out and seek views and opinions from all of our residents to find out more about our communities. The Community Safety consultation, although available for anyone to fill out, was designed and delivered for our adult population and this left out our younger residents.

To address this, we have undertaken a separate and youth focused consultation. This ‘Youth Safety Survey’ has been aimed at 11–18-year-olds and has looked at how safe young people feel in their local community and if they have had any experiences of violence, drug and alcohol use. The survey also included more positive questions, for instance what young people like about where they live and what they like to do in their local area.

This survey has run throughout March 2024 and has been targeted at all places that educate young people, including secondary schools, colleges, and electively home educated students. We will report the findings of this survey once the results have been analysed.

Where to report concerns

In the consultation, 1,079 people (79.5%) said they either didn’t know, or were unsure on, how to inform their relevant CSP about any anti-social behaviour or any community safety issues.

This became a really important takeaway from the consultation, and all CSPs are looking at different ways they can advertise and improve awareness on where different types of crime and anti-social behaviour can be reported. As the SWSP, all partner members will support this endeavour to help educate people on the right reporting channels dependent on the issue they have.

To find out more about the SWSP, including our purpose, our current priorities and our members, visit www.westsussex.gov.uk/SWSP (opens in new window).