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Design for Community Safety
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'Design for Community Safety Supplementary Planning Guidance' was approved by the Council in January 2002 and advises how improvements can be made to the physical environment that will help to mitigate crime, fear of crime and antisocial behaviour.
The document was prepared jointly with Community Safety Officers from Dudley North and South operational command units of the West Midlands Police over an eighteen month period and included extensive consultation both with local people and other interested parties in the field of community safety and urban design.
The guidance aims to raise awareness of the issues surrounding community safety, challenges poor design and develops an appreciation for the responsibility and contribution designers of the built environment have in reducing crime.
Its influence is widespread ranging from input in the formulation of strategic work (including development briefs) through to determining planning applications. The guidance is a material consideration at all stages of the design and development process.
The SPG seeks to meet the challenges set by local and national advice, where is it recognised that good urban design practice plays a vital role in delivering safe and attractive places. Various government publications such as Better places to live: By design, Places, Streets and Movement and National Planning Policy guidance notes PPG1 and PPG3 all support the notion that careful design measures can mitigate crime. Section 17 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 states that the planning system and Police authorities have a duty to formulate strategies and guidance to reduce crime.
The guidance also responds to the challenges set out in the Council's own Community Plan, Community Safety Strategy and Unitary Development Plan where community safety is a key theme to be tackled by the Council in partnership with other interested groups. Dudley MBC's Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership and the West Midlands Community Safety Sub Committee both demonstrate the holistic approach necessary to deliver safer communities, where the SPG is viewed as one of the key delivery mechanisms to reduce levels of crime amongst a raft of other initiatives. These have set the conditions for preparing the SPG.
National notoriety and acclamation
The guidance is stimulating continued and growing national interest from Police and Local Authorities from as far as Jersey to Edinburgh. The Audit Commission in two separate Best Value Reviews regards the SPG as 'innovative practice'. The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) quickly showed interest and support for the guidance by publishing an article on the 'Secured by Design' website. The guidance has also recently featured in the January 2003 edition of the Digest Journal by the Home Office Crime Reduction College. In acknowledgement of the partnership work West Midlands Police presented their Crime Reduction Officers of Dudley North and South and Joanne Tolley of the Urban Design Team, at Dudley with a Quality Achiever Award in recognition of their excellent work in October 2002.
A further accolade was received in Dec 2002 from the West Midlands Branch of the Royal Town Planning Institute with a commendation award for the SPG's outstanding achievement in Town and Country Planning.
The Council is being approached in a mentoring role and is being acknowledged up and down the country as a best practice leader in this field and have been invited to present the guidance at the Regeneration and Renewal Conference, 'Improving Community Safety through Design' in April 2003.
Further demonstration of the high regard held for the guidance is the recent adoption of the guidance as the same by Northamptonshire County Council and Northamptonshire Police and similar enquiries are on the increase.
The guidance is founded on established core principles of urban design. It demonstrates how urban design can lead as a discipline to deliver advice in partnership with the police on areas of public concerns through the planning process.
© 2005 - 2008 Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, Council House, Priory Road, Dudley, West Midlands, DY1 1HF