Sail project celebrates a year of reducing crime and disorder in Sunderland city centre.

Sunderland Echo

Sunderland Altogether Improving Lives brings together partner agencies under one roof, with the aim of making a real and lasting difference to people's lives.

Transcript

00:00 Neil Hall is the Community Chief Inspector with Northumbria Police.

00:03 Obviously, police priorities are a matter of public interest. Some people might say

00:09 that you should be going after the thefts, the robberies. This is all about

00:15 community policing. How important is that?

00:17 Yeah, it was vitally important. Community policing is dictated by what the community tell us they need.

00:24 I think in this instance with the SAIL team, we engaged lots with the stakeholders in Sunderland City Centre

00:30 who all told us that there was a big problem with youth ASB, with adult alcohol-related ASB in the city centre.

00:38 So we felt as a mobility agency that we needed a dedicated police and partner presence in the city centre

00:44 to combat those issues. So I think you talked about thefts, that's obviously something that is collateral

00:50 to the issues we've been facing and obviously we'll react to anything that happens in the city centre.

00:55 And what's the feedback been?

00:57 The feedback has been incredibly positive. I think the data tells us that there's been reductions in reporting.

01:04 So, public disorder, commercial burglaries, street drinking, rowdy and inconstant behaviour, it's all halved in reporting.

01:14 So that's great. The most important thing is the feedback we've had from the community

01:18 who are telling us that it feels safer, it's a better place to visit, work.

01:22 And that for me is probably more important because that tells us that actually we're making a difference.

01:28 Councillor Graham Miller is the leader of Sunderland City Council. What's the thinking behind SAIL?

01:33 The thinking behind SAIL is to make the city centre environment safe.

01:39 We're trying to bring the public, our residents, back into the city centre by bringing forward pubs, restaurants,

01:47 cafes, support, the auditorium and the fire station, all the new entertainment that people have been asking for.

01:56 And if we don't bring in SAIL or something like it, we have an anti-social behaviour problem

02:02 and a low-level crime issue in the city centre.

02:05 So SAIL was brought in to deal with that and it has done a fantastic job of that when you look at the numbers dropping.

02:12 So that's why it's important.

02:16 Thornmouth Police and Crime Commissioner Kim McGuinness is here in Sunderland City Centre. What's the SAIL project about?

02:21 It's all about making Sunderland City Centre as safe as we can make it.

02:25 We think that everybody deserves to feel safe when they move around.

02:28 We want Sunderland to thrive and this approach brings everyone together to tackle everything from crime and anti-social behaviour

02:36 to street cleansing and prevention of crime and anti-social behaviour.

02:40 And it's working, we're seeing absolutely brilliant results and we're seeing people feel more confident.

02:45 And that low-level disorder can have a real impact on quality of life can't it?

02:49 It does. Low-level disorder does have an impact on quality of life.

02:53 It impacts on whether people come into town or not, it impacts on whether people leave the house or not.

02:59 These are really, really big things and so seeing a reduction of around 80% in that behaviour is huge for Sunderland

03:08 and people are telling us they feel safer.

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