Safer London Business Partnership and the Portman Group jointly welcome the success of London’s night-time economy partnerships working to make London boroughs safer by tackling alcohol misuse and creating thriving local night time economies.
An event, held in Central London, brought together local authorities, Police and businesses to share best practice and discover more about local alcohol partnership schemes including: PubWatch; Best Bar None; Community Alcohol Partnerships; Purple Flag, and BIDs along with PASS (Proof of Age Standards Scheme), Street Pastors and Drinkaware.
Strong and sustained partnerships between Police, local authorities, health and businesses are vital to the successful management of the evening and night time economy and feature in the new Home Office’s Modern Crime Prevention Strategy. The number of partnerships in the capital is ever growing. This event celebrated the successes of these so far and identified opportunities to build on them across London.
Official government statistics (ONS and HSCIC) show progress is being made in tackling alcohol harms, with significant and sustained falls in rates of binge drinking (down 20%), alcohol-related violent crime (down 34%) and underage drinking (down 36%). Polling carried out by YouGov has shown that Police and members of the public attributed falling rates of alcohol-related crime to better town centre management and better partnership working. A significant majority (64%) of Police surveyed believed that effective partnership working between Police, local authorities and licensed premises had increased over the last decade.
The Safer London Business Partnership is a not for profit organisation which aims to introduce and support business crime reduction partnerships (BCRPs) across the capital.
As the leading BCRP in London, we connect and support businesses with the tools, intelligence and partnerships which helps them to prevent crime and disorder which impacts them, their customers and the communities they operate in.
All our partnerships are locally managed and locally driven, which facilitates local business crime priorities. These are identified and addressed in close partnership with the business communities, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and local authorities.
Portman Group Local Partnerships Director, Rita King, said:
“We were delighted to host this event with the Safer London Business Partnership to celebrate the role of Local Alcohol Partnerships in making the night time economy safer and look forward to building on existing good practice to ensure that partnership working between the Police, local authorities and businesses benefit all communities across London.”
Safer London Business Partnership CEO, Hannah Wadey, said:
“Events such as these clearly show how important it is that we work in partnership with our business community to tackle alcohol related crime and nuisance in our night time economies. The Portman Group are leaders in this partnership work and Safer London is pleased that we can enhance our local Business Crime Reduction Partnerships (BCRPs) through collaboration with them.”
Detective Inspector Georgie Barnard, MPS Business Hub said:
“The Metropolitan Police Service are committed to partnership working. Events like these showcase some of the great work already taking place across London, and help foster new relationships for future schemes which will help make London the safest global city. In addition to cutting crime, the schemes discussed are pivotal in boosting confidence in the business community.”