Memorandum by Michael Clare (SRH 06)
I am a former Police Officer of 30 years service
and now a member of the support staff employed as a Crime Prevention
Design Adviser (CPDA), by the Thames Valley Police. The particular
parts of the enquiry I am interested in are:
— The level of public funding required
to meet social housing needs.
— The role and effectiveness of private
rented housing in meeting housing needs.
I would like to make the following submission:
We all need somewhere to call our home, whether
it is owned by ourselves, part owned with another stakeholder
or fully owned by a Registered Social Landlord (RSL), or even
privately rented. Part of calling somewhere our home is having
somewhere to relax, socialize, bring up children; where we can
store/use our possessions and be part of a cohesive society (as
promoted in PPS1 para 36—create safe and accessible environments
where crime and disorder or fear of crime does not undermine quality
of life or community cohesion...). In a press release from SEERA,
dated 23 April 2004, relating to a survey of residents in the
South east, one of the findings was that: "Crime and vandalism
were mentioned as a priority to address by 46% of the respondents".
This shows the importance amongst residents of Crime Prevention,
no matter what their tenure.
It is therefore important that any public funding
required to meet housing needs, needs to make sure that the dwellings
provided are not only suitable for habitation, are sustainable
in various ways and also, in the built form, are resistant to
crime. Private rented housing also needs to meet the same criteria,
so that residents feel secure in their home and surroundings.
In some ways the residents of social housing and private rented
housing are the more vulnerable in society as invariably they
are in the highest density developments and cannot afford to make
their homes more secure than they already are when built. Invariably
they cannot afford new BS 7950 crime resistant windows, BS Pas
23/24 front and rear and french doors, outer door locks to the
BS3621, or even if the needs arise, to have fitted an alarm. They
are stuck with whatever they have been provided with. It is therefore
important to provide a home that not only fulfils all the other
planning requirements but is also resistant to crime, without
making the dwelling look like a fortress. The British Standards
I have mentioned above do such a job in that they make the shell
of the home/building resistant to crime, whilst not detracting
from the aesthetic appearance of the development. The above British
Standards are one part of the Association of Chief Police Officers
crime prevention initiative (ACPOcpi), which is promoted by the
Home Office and within the design guide "Safer Places-The
Planning System and Crime Prevention", which says at page
34, "The Secured By Design initiative offers in-depth advice
on physical protection as part of a broad approach to designing
out crime. It also sets out technical standards for building security...
it forms an essential part of the crime prevention toolkit".
I would therefore wish to promote to you, that
any housing should, when built (whether it be social/private rented/or
other tenure), achieve the Secured By Design standard in the built
form, (in some cases depending where it is in the country as a
minimum standard), so that any new development is resistant to
crime. I have attached a copy of a Secured By Design Focus newsletter
that details a regeneration programme on a housing estate in Glasgow
where Secured By Design (SBD) doors and windows were fitted which
resulted in a 75% drop in house breaking (burglaries).
The Association of British Insurers (ABI) have
conducted research and produced a booklet entitled "Securing
the Nation: The case for safer homes", which I have also
attached. The report assesses the cost of SBD for different types
of home and also the potential savings for the consumer and the
national economy and concludes that the physical security measures
of SBD should form the basis of any future regulation. The words
in this document I find compelling and wonder why anyone would
not want to have a home not built to the Secured By Design standard
in the built form.
The Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act (2004)
included proposals for improving home security using the SBD model
and although passed has never been enabled so as to improve the
quality of the built form. I have to assume that since the Government
have not enabled this Act then they have stalled in their interest
in reducing domestic crime by removing the potential for it in
the built form. I would therefore ask that you recommend to Government
that this Act be enabled to help secure not only private rented
accommodation but also other tenures of accommodation, because
it would be wrong to stigmatise or discriminate against any different
tenure of occupation. The European Convention on Human Rights
says in Article 25: (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of
living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of
his family.
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