North Yorkshire Council

 

Richmond and Northallerton Area Constituency Committee

 

19/06/25

 

Community Safety & CCTV Service Annual Update

 

 

1.0       PURPOSE OF REPORT

 

1.1       To provide Members with an annual update on the work of the Community Safety & CCTV Service in the Richmond and Northallerton area. This will include a focus on Community Safety Hubs, CCTV and the wider strategic Community Safety Partnership   

 

 

2.0       SUMMARY

 

The report provides an overview of Community Safety & CCTV delivery and the priorities for the year ahead.  

 

3.0       Richmond and Northallerton COMMUNITY SAFETY HUB

           

3.1       Local Issues

           

•              Young people riding motorbikes and scooters in an anti-social manner and groups of youths causing ASB in Richmond.

•              Visitors to the Richmond Falls causing ASB and Crime and Disorder

•              Groups of youths causing ASB Nuisance, graffiti, and the use of catapults and motorbikes in Northallerton.

•              Vehicles causing ASB Nuisance and Environmental ASB in the Leeming Bar area.

•              Visitors to the Osmotherly area causing ASB and Crime and Disorder

•              Mental health (MH) impact, adults causing ASB due to non-engagement with MH services.

•              Northallerton are seeing an increase in homelessness linked to ASB Nuisance and Environmental ASB

•              Criminality/ASB work with Rural Task Force is ongoing across different local authority and policing areas.

 

3.2       Ongoing Work to Tackle Local Issues

 

•              ‘Project Spotlight’ initiative deployed in the Richmond Falls, Leeming Bar and Osmotherly areas, with the aim of reducing ASB, substance misuse, crime and disorder. Regular Multi agency meetings held to tackle the issues raised and create a safe environment

•              Early intervention and reassurance along with physical target hardening.

•           Community Protection Warnings have been served to individuals causing ASB.

•           Acceptable Behaviour Contracts are in place with those individuals know to be causing ASB, in all areas. Diversionary activity explored.

•           Ensuring safeguarding and Mental Health support agencies are in place

•           Criminal Behaviour orders are being managed and reviewed for breaches. Two new applications are in progress.

•           Work with Rural Task Force is ongoing; provision of early intervention and reassurance along with physical target hardening. Utilising Project Community initiative.

•              Ongoing work with housing associations and internal housing to support both private and council tenants with issues around ASB, Neighbour disputes and target hardening. Multi agency approach to tackle this is applied.

•              Fortnightly Multi Agency Problem Solving meetings are held to tackle concerns and work collaboratively with other partners and agencies.

•              Community Maps recently launched, engagement around Hotspot locations and support available to communities.

•              Target Hardening Approach – Identification of repeat hotspot locations.

•           High Volume callers, working collaboratively to support the caller and reduce the calls to services.

•              Closure Orders – closure of properties associated with anti-social behaviour, disorder and nuisance to our communities, in conjunction with North Yorkshire Police.  

•              Closure order applications underway, at a property that is causing ASB. Working collaboratively with NYP

•              Project Community – community engagement and reassurance.

 

3.3       Community Safety Hub Tools & Powers

 

The Community Safety & CCTV Service, as part of Service development, is committed to the continuous professional development of the staff team. Our aim is to ensure effective use of all tools and powers available to the Community Safety Hubs within the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, and consistent use in the application of these across North Yorkshire. 

 

3.4       Project / Thematic Work

 

•              A county wide project around Knife bins has been successful within the Richmond and Northallerton localities. We have 5 bins covering both areas which were installed mid-February 2025

•              We are currently in the process of rolling out “Bleed Kits” in 8 different locations around Northallerton and Richmond. This is alongside the other CSHs and in line with the Serious Violence Duty Priority.

•              Catterick within Richmond has seen an “Afghanistan Assistance Resettlement Program” (ARAP) which is co-ordinated and managed by the Military, the Localities and the Migrant Teams within NYC. The welcoming of these families has not been without negative community tensions and we the CSH are managing the community tensions by taking the appropriate actions.

•              We run events and education sessions around the National Awareness weeks, with the next ones being ASB awareness week and National Safeguarding week.

•              Richmond and Northallerton CSH are linking in with North Yorkshire Police’s Week of Action, where we are holding “Neighbourhood clean-up days”.

•              We are working alongside NYP, running a community competition around the local primary schools across all areas of Northallerton and Richmond, giving young people the opportunity to create a road safety.

•              We ensure that we are available to promote, explain and showcase the CSH work and the impact that the hub has in reducing ASB and Crime and disorder as with so many changes the purpose of the hub can get lost. This is important to ensure that relationships are forever developing and growing especially with the recent changes to the council.

•              Recently work around a “Who’s Who” document has been tasked to the Northallerton and Richmond CSH

 

 

 

 

 

3.5       Community Safety Hub Activity as per Performance Framework

 

The Community Safety & CCTV Service is currently developing a Performance Framework to enable the Service to evidence performance against identifiable outcome measures. This will demonstrate the effectiveness of the Community Safety Hubs against our Key Performance Indicators.

 

4.0       COMMUNITY SAFETY PARTNERSHIP     

 

4.1       The Richmond and Northallerton Community Safety Hub undertakes work that supports the strategic priorities of the North Yorkshire Community Safety Partnership. This work is driven by the Partnership team within Community Safety and supported by staff members of the Richmond and Northallerton Community Safety Hub.   

 

4.1.1    A link to the North Yorkshire Community Safety Partnership Strategic Plan 2024 – 2028 can be found here.

 

4.2       Domestic Abuse

16 Days of Action – 25th November to 10th December 2024

 

To support the international campaign at a local level, community engagement events were held across the County, a total of seven events were arranged.  Partner agencies were invited to join the Community Safety Officers at the events and those able to attend included IDAS, Foundation, North Yorkshire Police, NYC Health & Adult Services, St. Giles Trust.  Events were held in locations that generated a good footfall: Supermarkets, a stall on Market Day.  At all the events there was a comprehensive range of leaflets the officers were able to handout.  All the events generated good engagement with the public and it was noted that on four separate occasions domestic abuse was disclosed to an officer and appropriate actions were taken to support the victims with advice and signposting.  Comms for the events included posts on social media and internal NYC platforms: Viva Engage, Intranet.

           

Richmond and Northallerton Community Safety Hubs play a crucial role in addressing domestic abuse by ensuring early intervention, safeguarding, and multi-agency collaboration. The cases that the CSH manage on occasions will have a domestic abuse element and this will always need supporting and to be recognised, where appropriate, referrals to be made.

 

We also campaign and run awareness events to educate and safeguard victims where possible, linking in with partners and other agencies.

 

4.3       Preventing and Reducing Serious Violence

 

Richmond and Northallerton Community Safety Hubs plays a key role in preventing and reducing serious violence through a multi-agency approach that focuses on early intervention, public awareness, and targeted enforcement.

 

Key strategies used to tackle Serios Violence (SV).     

·         Public Health Approach – Tackling the root causes of violence, such as deprivation, substance misuse, and social exclusion.

·         Early Intervention & Prevention – Identifying at-risk individuals and providing support before violence escalates.

·         Multi-Agency Collaboration – Working with North Yorkshire Police, fire services, probation, youth services, and health organisations to coordinate responses.

·         Community Engagement & Education – Raising awareness about serious violence, including knife crime and domestic abuse, through campaigns and workshops.

·         Targeted Enforcement & Intervention – Addressing specific issues such as violence in the night-time economy, gang-related crime, and violence against women and girls.

 

North Yorkshire’s Serious Violence Strategy (2024-2029) outlines these priorities and ensures that interventions are data-driven and evidence-based.

 

4.3.1    Night-time Economy

 

The Community Safety & CCTV Service is working in partnership with North Yorkshire Police, North Yorkshire Council colleagues and additional partner agencies to support the North Yorkshire Police Night Time Economy Strategy.

 

4.4       Standing Together to Tackle Hate Crime, Radicalisation and Extremism

 

•              Richmond and Northallerton Community Safety Hubs play a vital role in tackling hate crime, radicalisation, and extremism through a multi-agency approach that prioritises prevention, intervention, and community resilience.

•              We utilise the Prevent Strategy which is aimed at stopping individuals from being drawn into terrorism. We work with all local schools, youth clubs and community groups promoting positive values and Community Cohesion. We work with voluntary groups and voluntary organisations to challenge extremist narratives and encourage open dialogue. Currently we are holding SCaN training sessions within the Richmond locality having already completed sessions in the Northallerton locality. The sessions are aimed at professionals and businesses to ensure that they are aware of action that should be taken to both prevent an attack or during an attack.

•              We seek to educate and raise awareness providing safeguarding and early intervention. Recently we have tackled graffiti issues of an antisemitic nature and provided target hardening, we currently are working with developers of a new housing estate who are also victim of inappropriate graffiti. This has caused outrage and unrest amongst the residents. Work is ongoing with Developers, Town Councillors, Northallerton CCTV, Environmental Health and Police.

 

4.4.1    North Yorkshire local Prevent Groups and Protect and Prepare Groups

 

Local multiagency groups have been set up to focus and deliver on ‘Protect and Prepare’ and ‘Prevent’ strands of the CONTEST Strategy. These groups are chaired by Snr Managers from the Community Safety & CCTV Team and are supported by a Snr Development Officer and a local group covers the following areas:

 

·         West (Ripon, Richmond, Skipton, including the outer areas of Northallerton)

·         Central (Harrogate, Selby, Knaresborough, Ainsty)

·         East (Scarborough, Whitby, Thirsk, Malton, Easingwold)

 

The aim of the local ‘Protect and Prepare Groups’ and local ‘Prevent Groups’ is to work together with partners, communities and businesses to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism, and to identify risk and vulnerability in relation to a potential terrorist attack in North Yorkshire. This includes the development of short-, medium- and long-term strategies and action plans to mitigate such risks. Activities can include local community engagement events, supporting national campaigns, support events (Businesses) and multi-agency training opportunities, as well as building on local intelligence to help inform plans, such as the Counter Terrorism Local Profile (CTLP).      Each of these local groups report on their local activity directly into the York and North Yorkshire Prevent Partnership Board, the North Yorkshire Council Strategic Protect & Prepare Group, North Yorkshire Community Safety Partnership and the York and North Yorkshire CONTEST Board.

 

 

 

 

4.4.2    Martyn’s Law

 

The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill, known as Martyn’s Law, gained Royal Assent on 3rd April 2025, after more than five years of campaigning by Figen Murray OBE, the mother of Martyn Hett, one of 22 victims brutally murdered in the Manchester Arena terror attack, 22 May 2017. Martyn’s Law essentially mandates that public premises with a capacity greater than 200 are better prepared for terrorist attacks and ready to respond. Each local Protect and Prepare Groups will help to support the implementation of Martyn’s Laws over the next 24 months within their locality.

 

5.0       CCTV

 

5.1       There are currently CCTV Control Rooms in Harrogate, Scarborough and Northallerton, with provision in Selby being provided by a third party. Harrogate and Scarborough provide a 24 hour / 365-day service.

 

5.2       The future of CCTV across North Yorkshire is subject to further strategic review and transformation. The aim is to review our existing infrastructure, identify opportunities, maximising technology and working alongside our key partners.

 

5.3       Due to property rationalisation at North Yorkshire Council and the proposed sale of the Civic Centre at Stonecross. The CCTV Control Room at Northallerton will be relocating to Harrogate; this will increase service delivery to a 24/7 service, 365 days per year.

 

5.4       CCTV Performance in Northallerton–

 

            In the period 01/04/2024 to 31/03/2025, the CCTV Control Room in Northallerton monitored a total of 1056 incidents, 59 arrests, undertaken 418 reviews of footage and provided 491   copies of evidence to potentially be utilised for court proceedings. 

 

There are radio links with the Northallerton and Thirsk Pubwatch groups and Northallerton Retail Crime Group (Shop Watch).

 

 

6.0

RECOMMENDATION(S)       (MANDATORY)

 

 

 

i)      As part of annual reporting arrangements to Area Constituency Committees, it is recommended that Members note the content of this report, outlining progress of the Northallerton Community Safety Hub and the Community Safety and CCTV Service.

 

 

 

Report Author – Helenor Gwatkin

 

Presenter of Report – Helenor Gwatkin / Paul Romans