Transparency data

Winter of Action

Published 7 April 2026

Applies to England and Wales

Background

The Winter of Action (WoA) ran from 1 December 2025 to 31 January 2026. 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, as well as night-time economy safety and violence against women and girls, in 613 town centres and related areas of various sizes across England and Wales. The initiative built on the success of the Safer Streets Summer Initiative, which took place in almost 650 town centres and resulted in over 16,000 arrests and fines, mostly for shop theft and antisocial behaviour.  

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 partners) and police enforcement (e.g. seizing illegal e-bikes and e-scooters).

In addition, there was a focus on community engagement activities, including police force communication with the public (engagement vans and social media presence), and outreach engagement in conjunction with local authorities and charities, aimed at improving feelings of safety in the night-time economy. Examples include CCTV monitoring, night marshals, anti-spiking schemes and safe space hubs. Youth engagement focused on outreach and education (e.g. sessions delivered in schools around ASB) and diversionary activity (e.g. sport sessions and youth club activities).

Activities also focused on retail crime, including police-led retail engagement (e.g. 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). Targeting prolific retail criminals was a key focus of the initiative, with emphasis placed on identifying the most regular offenders via new recording systems and delivering meaningful consequences (e.g. the use of arrests and criminal behaviour orders).

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

Operational activity

Data from the initiative (1 December 2025 to 31 January 2026) identified a wide range of activity across England and Wales, within 613 town centre areas. 35 out of 38 Police and Crime Commissioners and Deputy Mayors who participated submitted force and stakeholder data to understand the activity taken during this initiative.  Almost 18,000 arrests for retail crime, street crime, sexual offences and violent assault were made across these areas over the WoA period. Of these, over 10,000 (56%) were for violent assault, over 5,000 (30%) were for retail crime, over 1,000 (9%) were for sexual offences, and just under 1,000 (5%) were for street crime. In addition, over 4,000 ASB Powers/Tools were used over the period in WoA town centres.^{[footnote 1]}

According to our best estimates, forces delivered over 75,000 visible patrol hours in Winter Initiative town centre areas.^{[footnote 2]}

Public perceptions of ASB and acquisitive crime

Since June 2023, the Home Office has commissioned Ipsos to conduct a monthly online survey on overall ASB perceptions and experience using their iOmnibus survey. In May 2025, questions about experiences of retail crime and mobile phone theft were added to the survey. Questions on experiences of street crime were added in September 2025.^{[footnote 3]} The survey samples a nationally representative sample of 4,000 respondents each month.

Since the periods of seasonal activity began with the Safer Streets Summer Initiative at the end of June 2025, ASB levels experienced in town centres have decreased by 5 percentage points (21% in June 2025 compared to 16% in February 2026) and levels of mobile phone theft experienced in town centres have decreased by 2 percentage points (8% in June 2025 compared to 6% in February 2026). Levels of retail crime have remained stable (21% in June 2025, 20% in February 2026).^{[footnote 4]}

Analysis has also been conducted covering the operational period of the WoA specifically. The survey results from December 2025 (pre/beginning of Winter of Action) – February 2026 (after the Winter of Action) found that:

• there were no changes in the levels of ASB, retail crime, mobile phone theft or street crime during this period
• there was an increase in public confidence in town centres, with a 3 percentage point decrease in the extent to which ASB limited people from visiting their local town/city centre (22% in December 2025 compared with 19% in February 2026) and a 4 percentage point decrease in the extent to which crime limited people from visiting their local town/city centre (20% in December 2025 compared with 16% in February 2026)

The tables below provides more detailed survey results from the operational period of the WoA.

Anti-social behaviour and acquisitive crime survey results: December 2025 to February 2026

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

Topic / question	December 2025	February 2026	Statistically significant difference
Not enough shops that interest me	38%	38%	[ns]
Too many empty shops	32%	30%	[ns]
Parking too expensive	24%	22%	[s]
Prefer online shopping	23%	22%	[ns]
Concern about ASB	22%	19%	[s]
Concern about crime	20%	16%	[s]
Not enough/limited parking	16%	14%	[s]
Lack of convenient public transport	14%	10%	[s]
Another reason	3%	4%	[s]
Nothing limits me	26%	31%	[s]

Table 2: Experience of crime and antisocial behaviour

Topic / question	December 2025	February 2026	Statistically significant difference
% who witnessed/ experienced ASB in local area in last month	29%	30%	[ns]
% who perceive ASB to be a problem in local area	31%	31%	[ns]
% who witnessed retail crime in local town/ city centre in the last month	20%	20%	[ns]
% who witnessed/experienced street crime in local town/city centre in the last month	9%	9%	[ns]
% who witnessed/ experienced mobile phone theft in local town/ city centre in the last month	6%	6%	[ns]

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

Topic / question	December 2025	February 2026	Statistically significant difference
Town/ city centre or local high street	15%	16%	[ns]
Residential roads or estates	15%	15%	[ns]
Parks	11%	11%	[ns]
Shopping centres	9%	9%	[ns]
Public transport/public transport stops	8%	8%	[ns]
Bars or clubs	5%	5%	[ns]
Fast food restaurants or chains	5%	6%	[ns]
Somewhere else	2%	1%	[ns]

Key

[s] – Statistically significant change witnessed between December and February estimates

[ns] – No statistically significant change witnessed between December and February estimates

1. These figures are based on bespoke data returns and cannot be directly compared to official policing statistics. ↩

2. 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. ↩

3. As this is a national survey, these results are not specific to the Winter of Action town centres areas and so we are not able to directly attribute any changes to activity delivered under the WoA and may have been influenced by other factors.  However, while we are not able to directly attribute a causal link the scale of Winter of Action activity delivered in town centres across the country over the period covered by the survey supports consideration of the link with the changes seen. ↩

4. Please note that while changes for ASB and mobile phone theft are statistically significant, the results for retail crime are not statistically significant. ↩