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Tackling anti-social behaviour in Chichester
I am sure that, like me, people across the Chichester constituency were appalled to hear that a cast member of Chichester Festival Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream had been the subject of an alleged hate crime involving a group wearing balaclavas and riding bikes in the city centre. An arrest has now been made, and the incident is being treated as a homophobic hate crime.
This incident in no way represents the views of most people in Chichester or their experiences of the city, which I know to be a welcoming and hospitable place. However, I, like many others, am profoundly sad that multiple members of the cast experienced a less than welcoming environment on our streets and have shared stories of racism, homophobia and xenophobia in their six week stay. I hope the support they have subsequently received from Chichester Police, the theatre and my office will reassure them that we take incidents like this incredibly seriously.
What we now need is proactive action to tackle anti-social behaviour on our streets. Particularly the use of e-bikes, which is an issue that comes up on doorsteps everywhere I visit across the constituency and is not isolated to the city. I believe we need a multi-agency approach to tackling the problem. That is why I have written to Sussex’s Police and Crime Commissioner, alongside the Cabinet Member for Communities at Chichester District Council, the Chief Executive of Chichester Business Improvement District (Chichester BID) and Chichester Businesses Against Crime (CHIBAC), calling for a meeting to develop an action plan to tackle this behaviour.
Residents are rightly concerned that there is not enough of a police presence to address the issue. That is why I am leading a debate in Parliament this week, focusing on neighbourhood policing and the importance of a community presence. With a Home Office Minister in place, I will raise the issue of funding for our police forces, which were hollowed out under the last Conservative Government, to ensure that we have police officers on our streets. We also need to ensure that local police officers’ time is used more effectively, including through the creation of an online crime agency to take work away from officers and allow them to spend more time on patrol.
I will also use the debate as an opportunity to renew my calls for the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner to reopen Chichester Custody Centre, which was closed in 2018, citing financial pressures. Its closure means officers spend over a thousand hours every year travelling to Worthing or Crawley following arrests, while the Chichester building itself has remained mothballed.
More must be done, across Chichester to tackle this issue and put an end to what is becoming a recurrent theme reported to me. I will be fighting for exactly that, in Chichester and in Parliament.
