City Centre Neighbourhood Action Group

This is somewhat of a gathering of the great and the good but useful nonetheless.  It is a Thames Valley Police initiative and includes councillors, council officers (including Ben Smith, Neighbourhood Policing Coordinator Community Housing & Community Development; Karen Crossan, Nightsafe Manager; Julian Allison from licensing; and Linda Jones, Estate Manager for Tenancy Services for Central Oxford), and several from Thames Valley Police.   Representatives from OUSU also attended.



We discussed the City Cente Situational Report which shows that most crime in the City Centre has reduced rather pleasingly.  Graffit was a bit on the rise and this would be looked at.

The OUSU reps, Eorann Lean and Kat Wall, also presented an excellent report about Student night-time safety which highlighted a few areas of concern that Thames Valley Police agreed to work on.  According to the survey, which was responded to by 148 students, the current challenges are as follows:

• 41.6% leave clubs and pubs alone more often than not


• 43.5% walk alone in the city centre at night more often than not


• 38.9% walk beyond the immediate city centre at night


• 48.4% never call a friend if they realise they will be walking alone in the dark


• 33.3% sometimes feel threatened, 7.1% most times feel threatened (although 49.2% say they rarely feel threatened when out at night)


• 7.9% sometimes have been threatened when out at night/54% never been threatened or harassed when out at night/37.3% rarely