A month of action with Safer Business Network 

Over the month of March 2024, Safer Business Network co-ordinated a Month of Action across London boroughs, bringing together law enforcement, businesses and BIDs, and local authorities together to tackle crime.

Throughout the month, the SBN team ran 12 Safer Business Action Days & Nights. In Hammersmith and Fulham, five deployments were made including on King Street from 24 to 31 March. This resulted in:

Success stories include the arrest of a repeat offender at a premises in Hammersmith who was also wanted for burglary offences, and officers were able to follow up a report of ATM tampering and remove a device. The Neighbourhood Policing Team also visiting many businesses with advice on how to focus on their high priority repeat offenders.

While SBN’s work continues throughout the year, these Action Days have proved to be a valuable tool in strengthening partnerships between law enforcement, businesses and Business Improvement Districts, local authorities and other security partners. The days also highlight the importance of local intelligence from those ‘on the ground’, such as our local businesses. Information fed to SBN directly leads to the arrest of high-harm offenders and helps to disrupt criminal activities across London that impact our business communities.

Hammersmith BID became a member of Safer Business Network in December 2023 and to date our SBN Engagement Officer has made 159 visits to Hammersmith businesses. The membership ensures that Hammersmith’s businesses are connected to a wider crime-tackling network, making it easier to identify and disrupt repeat offenders here and across the capital and country. We look forward to being part of future Action Days and engaging with more of our businesses on this.

Alessandra Valencic, Safer Business Network SaBA Coordinator said:  

“The impact that these action days are having is much bigger than it looks. While one day of disruption may not solve everything, these days of action allow for stronger relationships to be forged with businesses and partners, while demonstrating the power that local intelligence has in bringing high-harm offenders to justice. The success of these days sits with the hard work our officers, businesses and local policing teams do day in and day out, and we are pleased to see how local intelligence has been in delivering the outstanding number of arrests and injunctions, highlighting how much we all have a part to play and how much partnership work is the key to success.” 

National Business Crime Centre lead Supt Patrick Holdaway said:  

“I would like to thank the Safer Business Network for supporting the NBCC national month of action against retail and business crime. Police, private security and other partners worked together to hold 12 SaBA Days across London resulting in 46 arrests. The entire team worked hard to visit and engage with over 500 businesses building long term relationships and helping to improve confidence in the policing and partnership response to local crime issues. The Safer Business Network team are always willing to support our initiatives and put in significant time and resources into planning and executing dedicated operations to drive down crime. We are proud to work with them.” 

Read more about Safer Business Network here. Find out about Hammersmith BID’s partnership with Discover Fulham BID to form the Hammersmith and Fulham Business Crime Reduction Partnership here.