Council to fund community safety officers in Central Bedfordshire to tackle low-level crime and anti-social behaviour

Central Bedfordshire Council has announced it will be funding 12 new community safety officers to work alongside the police and local residents to help tackle community safety issues.
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The new posts include Neighbourhood Response Officers who will take part in the police accreditation scheme so that they can work alongside the police to tackle local problems.

Other officers will have specific roles to help tackle anti-social behaviour like graffiti, street drinking and environmental crimes such as fly-tipping, littering and noise issues.

Councillor Ian Dalgarno, Executive Member for Community Services, said: “Low levels of crime and anti-social behaviour are important in making somewhere a good place to live and work. We know feeling safe is really important to our residents and we are responding to this.

Central Beds Council's offices at ChicksandsCentral Beds Council's offices at Chicksands
Central Beds Council's offices at Chicksands

“By having more uniformed officers, we will be able to improve our support to the local community, respond to issues faster, share more local intelligence with the police and generally have more visibility and presence in the community helping people to feel safer and helping to deal with low level crime.

“I was also really pleased that the Executive recommended an additional £1million funding specifically for community safety as part of the budget. This will also allow us to expand even further on the resources available by investing in CCTV and more officers.

“We will recruit for these new posts as soon as possible and aim to have our new officers by the end of the summer.”