Transparency data

Safer Streets Summer Initiative

Published 3 December 2025

Applies to England and Wales

Background

The Safer Streets Summer Initiative (Summer Initiative) ran from 30 June to 30 September 2025. It was a nationally coordinated, locally designed and delivered programme, led by police and crime commissioners and deputy mayors. Its focus was to address antisocial behaviour, street crime, and retail crime in 649 town centres and related areas of various sizes across England and Wales.

A wide range of activities were delivered across town centres as part of the initiative. This included activity considered good practice in delivering crime reduction outcomes such as increased high visibility patrolling (e.g. hotspot patrolling and additional joint patrols with local authority Street Ambassadors), police enforcement (e.g. seizing illegal e-bikes) and a focus on meaningful consequences (e.g. the use of criminal behaviour orders (CBOs) and public space protection orders (PSPOs)). There was also a focus on community engagement activities, including a focus on police force communication with the public (engagement vans, pop-up police stations and social media presence), outreach engagement in conjunction with local authorities and charities (e.g. anti-spiking schemes, safe-space hubs) and youth engagement and diversionary activity. In addition, there was activity focusing on business engagement with police-led retail engagement (e.g. enforcement on licencing, seizure of stolen goods, dissemination of technology such as radios) and stakeholder led activity (e.g. engagement with business improvement districts and business crime reduction partnerships).

You can read more about the initiative and view a list of programme locations

Operational activity

Data from the initiative (30 June 2025 to 30 September 2025) identified significant activity across England and Wales, within 649 town centre areas. ^{[footnote 1]} Forty one out of 43 police and crime commissioners submitted force and stakeholder data to understand the activity taken during this initiative.  Submitted data identified a total of over 16,000 arrests and fines for antisocial behaviour (ASB), retail crime, and street crime across these areas. Of these, over 8,000 were arrests (83% for retail crime, 17% for street crime) and just under 8,000 were fines (87% for ASB, 8% for retail crime, 4% for street crime). ^{[footnote 2]}

According to our best estimates, forces delivered over 160,000 estimated visible patrol hours in Summer Initiative town centre areas over the summer. ^{[footnote 3]}

Public perceptions of ASB and acquisitive crime

Since June 2023, the Home Office has commissioned Ipsos UK to conduct a monthly online survey on overall ASB perceptions and experience using their iOmnibus survey. Questions on experience of retail crime and mobile phone theft were added in May 2025. ^{[footnote 4]} The survey samples a nationally representative sample of c.4,000 respondents each month ^{[footnote 5]}.

The Home Office ASB and acquisitive crime survey data comparing July 2025 results to September 2025 results can be found below:

Table 1: Factors which limit people visiting their town / city centre

Topic / question	July 2025	September 2025	Statistically significant difference
Not enough shops that interest me	38%	33%	[s]
Too many empty shops	30%	27%	[s]
Parking too expensive	24%	22%	[ns]
Prefer online shopping	24%	20%	[s]
Concern about ASB	25%	21%	[s]
Concern about crime	21%	17%	[s]
Not enough / limited parking	15%	13%	[s]
Lack of convenient public transport	12%	11%	[ns]
Another reason	4%	3%	[ns]
Nothing limits me	28%	31%	[s]

Table2: Experience of crime and antisocial behaviour*

Topic / question	July 2025	September 2025	Statistically significant difference
% who witnessed / experienced ASB in local area in last month	37%	31%	[s]
% who perceive ASB to be a problem in local area	37%	33%	[s]
% who witnessed retail crime in local town / city centre in the last month	21%	20%	[ns]
% who witnessed/ experienced mobile phone theft in local town / city centre in the last month	10%	9%	[ns]

Table3; Locations where ASB was witnessed / experienced in local areas in last month*

Location	July 2025	September 2025	Statistically significant difference
Town / city centre or local high street	21%	16%	[s]
Residential roads or estates	20%	16%	[s]
Parks	15%	12%	[s]
Shopping centres	12%	10%	[s]
Public transport / public transport stops	9%	8%	[ns]
Bars or clubs	8%	5%	[s]
Fast food restaurants or chains	8%	5%	[s]
Somewhere else	2%	2%	[ns]

Key

[s] – Statistically significant change witnessed between July and September estimates

[ns] – No statistically significant change witnessed between July and September estimates

*indicates questions with a reduced sample size of 2,000 respondents in July. All survey questions had a sample size of 4,000 in September.

Footnotes

1. Data should be considered as estimates and may be subject to change if further data or clarifications are received from force areas and related partners. ↩

2. Not all police forces issue fines for the crime types targeted as part of SSSI. 17 forces did not report issuing a single fine as part of the initiative, opting for alternative out of court resolutions, including community resolutions, conditional cautions and diversionary schemes. ↩

3. This figure is an estimate based on the number of hours police and partners spent patrolling as part of the Hotspot Action Fund 25-26, counting hours delivered by each patroller. ↩

4. As this is a national survey, these results are not specific to the Summer Initiative town centres areas and so we are not able to directly attribute any changes to activity delivered under the SSSI.  However, while we are not able to directly attribute a causal link, the scale of Summer Initiative activity delivered in town centres across the country over the period covered by the survey supports consideration of the link with the reductions seen. ↩

5. For some questions, the sample size was reduced to 2,000 respondents between May and July 2025 due to testing of new survey questions. ↩