I arrived in Wigston Harcourt early, so I went for a bit of a walkabout to knock on doors in a suburban street to find out what people were thinking about local policing and crime. Interestingly, one lady raised with me vandalism at the nearby cemetery – which was the very reason I was in Wigston Harcourt in the first place.
Arriving at the cemetery I met Cllr Kevin Loydall, Chair of the local Community Safety Partnership, and council official Mark Smith as well as the Sexton John. The vandalism in the cemetery had been increasing over recent months. Vases have been smashed, flowers thrown about and small tokens of affection stolen.
Using money from the “Safer Streets Fund” that I won from the government, the Community Safety Partnership are putting up a pole and CCTV to overlook the areas worst affected.
“I’m pretty sure we know who is doing this,” said John. We just need the evidence so that we can take action.” I hope that they succeed. Vandalising graves is a despicable crime.
My next stop was at the Spar shop just off Aylestone Lane in Wigston itself. I was there to meet Sunita, the store manager, and Edward from the national Association of Convenience Stores. The main message was that shoplifting and assaults on staff have been rising – and that drives up costs.
“We used to have two staff in this store,” Sunita told me, “now we have three so that there is always one person walking the shopfloor to deter theft.” Edward explained that these increased costs can make some stores unviable, so they close down. And once shops start to close and remain empty the entire area goes downhill.
I was able to reassure them that the Leicestershire Police now have a business crime lead and Single Point of Contact [SPOC] who is in the process of drawing up a refined strategy to deal with retail theft, assaults on staff and business crime.
A patchwalk around the Leicester Road shops and nearby residential streets followed in the company of PC Collington and PCSO Haq. I was most impressed by the way the pair knew so many local residents and the friendly way that they interacted.
My final stop in Wigston was at the Co-op in Launceston Road where I met the store manager and the regional head of security, Nicola. The Co-op was also suffering a sharp increase in thefts – up by around 50% on this time last year – as well as abuse directed at staff.
“People blame the cost of living crisis,” Nicola told me, “but its not as simple as people short of cash stealing food to feed their families. It is that people short of cash can’t resist a bargain and so are more prone to buy stolen goods and knock down prices without thinking where they come from. It is career criminals doing the stealing, like it always is.” she made a plea for these repeat offenders to be deal with more harshly. I agreed, but sentencing is down to the judiciary who always guard their independence jealously.
I had to leave at that point to get off to a meeting in Leicester to talk about the issue of homelessness in the city.
