Crime in Meir South, Stoke-on-Trent

We’ve been actively listening to our business community, who have reported the significant impact this type of crime is having on both staff and shoppers. On the run up to the busy festive season we will be launching Operation Snowball, seeing in increase of high visibility officers to deter offending and make shopper feel safe, our City Intervention Team are supporting us with this. We have also focused operationally on identifying and targeting priority shoplifters, taking enforcement action including arrests where appropriate. In parallel, officers have been engaging directly with store security teams, working together to implement deterrents and banning known offenders from entering premises. We recognise that enforcement alone is not the solution, which is why we’ve worked closely with partner agencies to address the underlying causes of retail crime, such as homelessness and wider challenges. Regular rough sleeper outreach and welfare checks have been carried out in the town centre to ensure support is offered where needed. To help prevent issues, we've shared public safety messages to shoppers around vehicle crime prevention, reminding people to secure their vehicles and keep valuables out of sight when using local car parks. Looking ahead, this area will remain a key focus for us. We will continue to use Civil Powers, such as Community Protection Warnings (CPWs) and Criminal Behaviour Orders (CBOs), to manage persistent offenders and support safer retail environments.

Following a recent public meeting, residents and local businesses reported that there were concerns about drug related crime in the area, both in terms of drug dealing, as well as people under the influence of drugs causing issues. We have done a great deal of work to tackle this, including drugs warrants, increased CCTV and we have also moved the most impactive suspect causing issues out of the area. We hope this work is felt in the community and this will be an ongoing piece in the coming months. We encourage residents and businesses to continue to report incidents and intelligence to the police and this is the foundation for all the work we do. This can be done to the police directly or via Crimestoppers.

We’ve been actively listening to our business community, who have reported the significant impact this type of crime is having on both staff and shoppers. On the run up to the busy festive season we will be launching Operation Snowball, seeing in increase of high visibility officers to deter offending and make shopper feel safe, our City Intervention Team are supporting us with this. We have also focused operationally on identifying and targeting priority shoplifters, taking enforcement action including arrests where appropriate. In parallel, officers have been engaging directly with store security teams, working together to implement deterrents and banning known offenders from entering premises. We recognise that enforcement alone is not the solution, which is why we’ve worked closely with partner agencies to address the underlying causes of retail crime, such as homelessness and wider challenges. Regular rough sleeper outreach and welfare checks have been carried out in the town centre to ensure support is offered where needed. To help prevent issues, we've shared public safety messages to shoppers around vehicle crime prevention, reminding people to secure their vehicles and keep valuables out of sight when using local car parks. Looking ahead, this area will remain a key focus for us. We will continue to use Civil Powers, such as Community Protection Warnings (CPWs) and Criminal Behaviour Orders (CBOs), to manage persistent offenders and support safer retail environments.

We have continued to receive reports of boy racer activity and car meets on the Tesco car park, causing significant disturbance to shoppers and local residents. We have been working extensively, and will continue to do so, with Tesco management, the local authority, and our Roads Crime Team to deal robustly with those responsible.

All available legislation is being used to support enforcement, including the Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) already in place for this location. This will remain a key focus for our problem-solving policing tactics.

More recently, we have secured an agreement with Tesco for their car park barrier to be lowered on Sundays following store closure, which has already resulted in a noticeable reduction in ASB in the area.

We’ve been actively listening to our business community, who have reported the significant impact this type of crime is having on both staff and shoppers. In response, we’ve completed a Designing Out Crime review in partnership with our Early Intervention and Prevention Unit, identifying environmental and procedural improvements to help deter offending. We have also focused operationally on identifying and targeting priority shoplifters, taking enforcement action including arrests where appropriate. In parallel, officers have been engaging directly with store security teams, working together to implement deterrents and banning known offenders from entering premises. We recognise that enforcement alone is not the solution, which is why we’ve worked closely with partner agencies to address the underlying causes of retail crime, such as homelessness and wider challenges. Regular rough sleeper outreach and welfare checks have been carried out in the town centre to ensure support is offered where needed. To help prevent issues, we've shared public safety messages to shoppers around vehicle crime prevention, reminding people to secure their vehicles and keep valuables out of sight when using local car parks. Looking ahead, this area will remain a key focus for us. We will continue to use Civil Powers, such as Community Protection Warnings (CPWs) and Criminal Behaviour Orders (CBOs), to manage persistent offenders and support safer retail environments.