Evesham officers forge business crime partnership with retailers and council

Officers from Evesham town centre team have joined forces with retailers and Wychavon to clamp down on antisocial behaviour (ASB) and shoplifting in the town.

Reinforcing the work they already do, the Evesham Business Crime Reduction Partnership (EBCRP) is aimed at supporting the business community of Evesham to share intelligence and report incidents within the daytime and night-time economies.

With the support of the Evesham Place Board, the EBCRP has been established, chaired by James Carey from Waitrose & Partners, which includes use of the GDPR compliant and technically secure DISC crime prevention platform.

Evesham Place Board via Wychavon is funding the app on a 12-month trial through Wychavon’s share of the Government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

This scheme is open to all businesses in the area and provides important benefits such as access to details of suspected offenders, the ability to submit incident and intelligence reports regarding crimes, sharing information to protect the business community and working together with West Mercia Police to exclude repeat offenders from premises.

Police Sergeant Duncan Eades of the Evesham town centre team explained the EBCRP will reinforce the collaborative efforts officers carry out around the clock, 365 days a year to protect the business community from criminals.

“This partnership aims to foster good working relationships between retailers, the police and the council to clamp down on ASB and shoplifting which can impact businesses and the public,” he said.

“We hope the EBCRP improves communications between ourselves, and our partners and we would encourage interested parties to get in touch with us to sign up to it.”

Cllr Rob Adams, Wychavon’s Executive Board Member for Strong Communities, Culture and Sport, said: “I’m delighted to see the establishment of the EBCRP. This can only help to further break down barriers, increase information sharing and enhance existing partnership working, to help make Evesham an even safer place to live, work and visit.”

Any business interested in joining should email Evesham police at [email protected] or [email protected] .

ENDS

Notes to editors:

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund aims to improve pride in place and increase life chances across the UK investing in communities and place, supporting local business, and people and skills. For more information, visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-shared-prosperity-fund-prospectus