Safety & Security – Introduction
Safety and security is one of CRS’s core policy areas. We have worked closely with our neighbourhood policing team and with trusted partners to produce advice leaflets, a security self-assessment checklist, and a guide to setting up a Neighbourhood Watch scheme, links to which you will find below.
A report on our Residents’ Safety and Security Forum, which took place at the Tally Ho! police training centre on Thursday 10th October 2019, may be found on our Past Events page.
The safety of those who live in, work in and visit the Calthorpe Estate has to be at the forefront of everyone’s mind.
As an affluent part of the city with areas of significant deprivation within and adjacent to it, Edgbaston is a natural target for offences such as burglary and vehicle crime.
After years of reduced funding, police resources are increasingly tight and spread more thinly across a wider geographical area.
Everyday low-level crime and antisocial behaviour affect the quality of life of Edgbaston residents, but we must accept that for the foreseeable future police priorities will be focused on more serious crime and disorder.
Consequently, we as residents must take on a greater individual and community responsibility for our personal safety and the security of our property.
This does not mean that we should take the law into our own hands or resort to vigilantism; we simply need to take a few common sense measures and work together as a community to make ourselves less vulnerable to crime and to ease the demand on police resources.
Our aims are:
- To develop a network of residents’ groups and encourage CRS members to join or set up neighbourhood watch schemes.
- To enable an efficient flow of information about crime and antisocial behaviour across the network.
- To support and advise residents on individual and community measures to take in order to:
- reduce the likelihood of becoming a victim of crime,
- mitigate the effects of crime should it happen, and
- secure usable evidence to assist the police to bring perpetrators to justice.
- To work closely with the Police, Ward councillors and BCC officers , the MP for Edgbaston, WM Metro Mayor and other stakeholder organisations (eg CE, Mainstay, Watch Systems, UofB, NHS) and maintain an active presence at relevant forums such as PACT, ward and IAG meetings.
Some Useful Security Tools
As a starting point for crime prevention, personal security and improving your home security, we recommend the West Midlands Police crime prevention website.
If you would like to play detective, why not try this interactive website developed by West Midlands Police with a reformed burglar? You can explore the property and uncover clues about how the burglar broke in, and what the householder could have done to keep them out.
An effective way that you and your neighbours can prevent crime together is to form a Neighbourhood Watch group. Please go to our Neighbourhood Watch page
A great way to stay informed about what’s going on in the area is to sign up to WM Now, West Midlands Police’s messaging service. It’s quick, easy and free to sign up and you can tailor the messages to your neighbourhood and to issues that concern you
Looking at home security, we recommend the West Midlands Police survey, which you may download here.
We have developed a useful home security self-assessment questionnaire with Watch Systems Ltd – the main security providers to Calthorpe Estates. You may download it from the Watch Systems website.
