Combatting anti-social behaviour across hotspots in Bracknell Forest and tackling knife crime will be a focus for community safety chiefs in the coming years.

The councils’ new Community Safety Partnership (CSP) plan runs from 2020-2023 and has five priorities for reducing crime.

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These are:

  • Tackling exploitation of young people and vulnerable adults
  • Reducing incidents of serious violence, sexual offences and knife crime.
  • Working with communities to deal with crime and anti-social behaviour hotspots
  • Reduce harm caused by domestic abuse
  • Reduce incidents of residential burglary and theft from vehicles

Bracknell Forest Council chief executive Timothy Wheadon outlined the latest plan at a meeting earlier this week.

He said the new plan shared a consistency with the previous three-year vision but pointed out a desire to focus on tackling potential knife crime and tackling anti-social behaviour in community hotspots.

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Councillor John Harrison said: “Knife crime is not something by itself, it is linked in with other things.

“I‘m glad to see this renewed emphasis on knife crime.”

To reduce knife crime, police and local authority officials want to increase the number of young people engaged in outreach programmes and adopt a preventative approach to violence reduction.

Anti-social behaviour will be tackled after safety chiefs investigate the hotspots mentioned by some of the almost 500 Bracknell Forest residents who responded to the CSP consultation.

The priorities were chosen in relation to the CSP’s vision, which is: “Everyone has the right to be free from being a victim of crime and anti-social behaviour, to feel safe and to choose their own lifestyle.

“Everyone also has the responsibility to take reasonable steps to avoid becoming a victim of crime, not to cause harassment or distress to others and to respect differences in others.”

Local authorities are legally required to produce a CSP plan and Bracknell Forest Council worked with Thames Valley Police, the local clinical commissioning group and more to produce theirs.