Police action leading to drop in crime across City North

Targeted policing operations and patrols have all contributed to a drop in crime across Nottingham’s City North area.

Drug offending, antisocial behaviour (ASB) and acquisitive crimes are all longstanding priorities for the neighbourhood policing team.

Days of action designed to crackdown on these offences are regularly carried out by officers in the area, which covers Bestwood, Bulwell, Sherwood and Rise Park.

From taking to the streets with sniffer dogs, to carrying out patrols in plain clothes, City North officers have used multiple tactics to try and bring offences down.

This work has started to bear fruit, with overall reported crime in the area dropping by 17 per cent – when comparing the last six-month period with the one before it.

As part of this, reports of ASB and drug offending have gone down by 24 per cent and nine per cent respectively across the City North area.

In terms of acquisitive crimes – offences based on acquiring property – burglaries have dropped by 36 per cent, while overall reported theft has reduced by 10 per cent.

This trend has been replicated across the policing area, when comparing the period between August 2023 and January 2024 with the one between February 2023 and July 2023.

While there has been a 23 per cent drop in overall reported crime in Bestwood; Bulwell Forest, Sherwood and Bulwell have also seen respective drops of 19, 12 and 15 per cent too.

Despite the recent reduction in reported offences, the area’s neighbourhood policing inspector has vowed to continue putting the pressure on criminals through future police action.   

Inspector Paul Ferguson, of Nottinghamshire Police, said: “While it is pleasing to see that reported crime levels have reduced in our areas, we’re thoroughly aware that more still needs to be done to maintain this trend.

“A lot of work goes on across our neighbourhood policing team each day to keep people safe by cracking down on different types of criminal activity.

“As part of this, our officers carry out regular days of action aimed at targeting those involved in drug offending, ASB and acquisitive crimes, which are our longstanding priority areas.

“We’ve chosen these areas of policing to prioritise because the public have told us these are the issues that impact them the most and are what they want us to focus on.

“From plain clothed operations, to more visible patrols on the streets, our officers do all sorts of work to target and deter offenders and this will continue going forward.”   

As an example, officers from the Sherwood beat team carried out an operation to target drug activity in the Carrington area last Thursday (15 February).

A series of stop and searches were conducted by the officers on the day, with quantities of Class A drugs being seized during one that resulted in a suspect being voluntarily interviewed.   

This followed a series of drug crackdown operations in December, where a mix of uniformed and plain clothed officers conducted patrols in Bulwell, while accompanied by sniffer dogs.

The Bulwell team also recently conducted a day of action to target ASB and off-road bikers, which led to a stolen bike being recovered from the Top Valley area.

Meanwhile, a prolific shoplifter was caught trying to walk out of a Bestwood shop with his arms full of items earlier this month after being spotted by an officer who was conducting patrols on a pushbike.

Inspector Ferguson added: “Everything we do is centred on keeping people safe in our communities and reducing all forms of crime, not just those in our three priority areas.

“While reported crime has dropped across the City North area over the last six months, compared to the six before that, we’re certainly not complacent of this and are committed to carry on doing everything we can to improve things further.”