In a bid to reduce the rising tide of anti-social behaviour in all its forms, a unique partnership has been formalised between Wales’ four police forces and the Nation’s leading environmental campaigners.
The three page protocol agreement between Keep Wales Tidy and the four police forces details how, by working in partnership, they could move towards creating a Cleaner, Safer and Tidier Wales.
Both partners agree that a clean and tidy Wales is likely to be a safer Wales, which can only be solved sustainably by changing people’s attitudes, thus making them less likely to engage in activities such as littering, flytipping, vandalism and dog fouling.
Experience has shown that reducing the fear of crime helps to reduce its occurrence and that greater public confidence in using and enjoying the local environment reduces the opportunities for the criminal elements to damage them.
Since Keep Wales Tidy’s ‘Tidy Towns’ initiative was launched two years ago, both partners have been involved in informal campaigns across Wales aimed at improving local environments. Successful outcomes from those campaigns led to a decision to make a more formal use of the partners’ resources, personnel, expertise and enforcement powers.
The protocol lists how mechanisms will be established for sharing intelligence. Partners will have a joint presence at environmentally-related events and keep each other up to date with relevant funding streams and opportunities to ensure that resources are spread further and thus avoid unnecessary duplication.
Louise Tambini, Projects Diretcor of Keep Wales Tidy commented:
“With the combined might of the Nation’s police forces and our experience in raising awareness of the impact of environmental damage, we can now look forward to making Wales both clean and safe. Our staff will be on hand to provide expert advice and the presence of police officers at many of our clean up initiatives should make it clear that anti-social behaviour will no longer be tolerated.”
