Police presence on high streets

There will be a Westminster Hall debate on police presence on high streets on 5 June 2025. The debate will be opened by Paulette Hamilton MP.

Police numbers

There are 43 regional police forces in England and Wales. The Home Office is responsible for allocating funding to each force and the police and crime commissioner (or mayor) of each force sets the annual budget. The chief constable is responsible for day-to-day spending, recruitment, and operational decisions, including where to deploy officers.

In July 2024, the Home Office published data on police officer numbers, which stated that there were 147,746 full-time equivalent (FTE) officers in post in England and Wales as of 31 March 2024. The data also included a breakdown of functions including the number of officers in frontline officer roles and neighbourhood policing roles. However, in March 2025, the Home Office announced that some of the underlying data used to calculate the number of frontline roles required revision.

Provisional data on the neighbourhood policing sub function performed by police officers and police community support officers (PCSOs) have now been published, and state that as of 31 March 2024, there were 17,023 full time equivalent police officers and PCSOs in ‘neighbourhood policing roles’. This is a reduction of 2,760 police officers and an increase of 149 PCSOs in neighbourhood policing roles compared to the data published in July 2024. The Home Office will publish finalised revisions in “due course”.

General statistics on police numbers, including how the neighbourhood policing sub function fits into the local policing function, can be found in the Library briefing: Police Service Strength.

Neighbourhood policing guarantee

The Labour government has set out its priorities on neighbourhood policing and town centre crime in its ‘safer streets mission’.

This includes a “neighbourhood policing guarantee” that “each neighbourhood will have named, contactable officers to tackle the issues facing their communities, helping to restore trust that policing is working to keep people safe and meaning no community feels ignored when they need help.” This will include “dedicated teams who will spend their time on the beat with guaranteed police patrols in town centres and other hotspot areas at peak times such as Friday and Saturday nights” as well as a dedicated ASB lead in every force, to develop tailored action plans to tackle ASB.

CEO of the College of Policing, Chief Constable Sir Andy Marsh, has welcomed the government’s neighbourhood policing guarantee, stating that “a visible neighbourhood police presence serving the public to a more consistent standard will improve confidence in police.” The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) lead for the Local Policing Coordination Committee, Chief Constable Rachel Bacon, also welcomed the announcement, saying that “Visibility and engagement with local communities has always been central to the British policing model and police leaders are in agreement that it must always remain at the heart of what we do.”

Kate Nicholls, Chief Executive of UKHospitality, stated that “It cannot be overstated how important it is for businesses and communities to feel confident in their own safety on the streets, and knowing their neighbourhood police officers engenders that confidence.”

Central to the guarantee, is the government’s commitment to put 13,000 additional police officers, PCSOs and special constables into neighbourhood policing roles (see here for information on PCSOs and special constables). The government aims to have the additional 13,000 personnel in place by 2029.

It is not clear exactly what proportion of the 13,000 additional police personnel will be new officers and how many will be PCSOs and specials. The Home Secretary, providing evidence to the Home Affairs Committee in December 2024, suggested that the government’s starting point was that the 13,000 would be made up of 3,000 newly recruited police officers and 3,000 existing officers that will be redeployed from other roles, with the remainder being newly recruited PCSOs and special constables. She said:

Our starting-point figures—and it was just an indicative starting point—looked at 3,000 newly recruited police officers, 4,000 newly recruited PCSOs, 3,000 police officers redeployed from other areas—for example, we know high numbers of police officers have been doing back-office jobs or having to spend a lot of time on things such as redaction—and another 3,000 as specials. I think specials are underused. However, it was a starting point and we said in Opposition that it was a starting point for what the recruitment might look like. In practice, the final mix will have to be worked through with police forces. (Q.46)

More recently, the government has suggested the precise make-up of the additional officers will be determined by the local operational needs of each force (PQ45185, Neighbourhood Policing, 28 April 2025).

High Street Crime

The government will hope that its neighbourhood policing guarantee will help to address significant concerns over increased levels of crime on high streets especially in relation to shoplifting and anti-social behaviour. It has also introduced measures through the Crime and Policing Bill aimed at tackling retail crime and anti-social behaviour.

Retail crime

There are significant concerns over an increase in shoplifting.

Official statistics from the Crime Survey for England and Wales shows there were 516,971 shoplifting offences recorded by police forces in the year ending December 2024. This was an 18% increase on the previous year and the highest figure since the current recording practices began (2002/2003).

Surveys of retailers have also indicated a high prevalence of shoplifting and violence towards shop workers. For example:

• the Home Office’s 2023 Commercial Victimisation Survey found that 41% of wholesale and retail sector business premises experienced at least one incident of commercial crime (counted as burglary, vandalism, theft, robbery, assaults or threats and fraud) during the previous 12 months

• the annual British Retail Consortium’s Retail Crime Survey has found significant increases in incidents of violence and abuse experienced by shop workers in recent years

There have also been concerns over how the police respond to shoplifting. For example, the 2025 British Retail Consortium’s Retail Crime Survey found that 61% of retailers considered the police response to incidents of retail crime as poor or very poor. Retailers said that their lack of confidence that the police would respond to reports of shoplifting contributed to them not reporting some incidents.

In October 2023, the NPCC published a retail crime action plan (PDF). The plan outlined the police’s commitment to tackle shoplifting and prioritise attendance at incidents where violence was involved, repeat offenders had been detained or where evidence needed to be “promptly secured”. The NPCC also launched an information-sharing partnership between businesses and police called ‘Pegasus’, with the aim of better understanding the tactics used by organised retail crime gangs and identifying more offenders. The plan had been commissioned by the then Policing Minister, Chris Philp MP following concerns over the police’s response to retail crime.

Individual police forces have also launched specific initiatives to tackle retail crime in town centres. For example, in November 2023, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Police launched Southampton’s City Centre Policing Unit to increase police presence on high streets following a rise in shop theft and retail crime. Initiatives by Norfolk Constabulary and Greater Manchester Police to ensure shoplifting cases are investigated were also praised in a recent inspection on police investigations published by the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS).

However, the HMICFRS inspection also cautioned that “despite the efforts forces are making, it is clear that there is still a long way to go if the police are to improve retailers’ and the public’s confidence that they will treat shoplifting offences seriously”.

The Labour government’s Crime and Policing Bill 2024-25 (currently awaiting report stage in the Commons) includes measures aimed at tackling retail crime. This includes establishing a new standalone offence of assaulting a retail worker. The Conservative government previously committed to introducing legislation to this effect in April 2024, in its Fighting retail crime plan.

The Crime and Policing Bill would also repeal section 22A of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, that provides that a theft offence amounting to “low-value shoplifting” (defined as the value of stolen goods under £200) is to be treated as a summary offence and therefore can only be tried in the magistrates’ court. It has been argued that this has created a perception that low-value shoplifting is not prioritised.

See section 4 of the Library briefing Crime and Policing Bill 2024-25 for more information on these measures.

Anti-social behaviour

Anti-social behaviour (ASB) can encompass a wide range of behaviours that cause nuisance and harm to others, such as vandalism, noise nuisance, threatening behaviour, use of off-road bikes, drug use and harassment.

The Crime Survey for England and Wales suggests in the year ending December 2024, 36% of people experienced or witnessed ASB. Around 1 million ASB incidents are reported to the police each year. However, research by YouGov suggests there is significant underreporting as 57% of victims or witnesses don’t report ASB at all (PDF).

Statistics are not published on how many ASB incidents occur on the high street. However, several MPs have raised concerns over the high levels of ASB in town centres and on high streets in their constituencies, including in a previous Westminster Hall debate in April 2023.

The police and local authorities have a range of powers to respond to ASB, including imposing restrictions on people repeatedly engaged in ASB, criminalising certain behaviours in public spaces and the power to disperse people or to close premises associated with ASB. These powers are largely provided for under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. The Home Office publishes statutory guidance which provides more information on these range of powers.

The Victims’ Commissioner has long raised concerns that the police and other agencies do not routinely respond effectively to reports of ASB and do not provide sufficient support to victims. In October 2024, HMICFRS also raised concerns that the police do not always use the powers available to them to address ASB and do not provide sufficient support to victims.

Under the Conservative government, the Home Office funded ‘hotspot’ policing initiatives, to increase visible policing patrols in areas with high prevalence of ASB. The current government has continued this funding into 2025/26. Reports by North Yorkshire Police, Essex Police and the Nottinghamshire Police and Crime Commissioner have suggested hotspot policing has led to significant reductions in ASB in those areas, including on high streets.

The Labour government’s Crime and Policing Bill 2024-25 includes a range of measures aimed at strengthening the response to ASB, including establishing ‘respect orders’ (a new type of civil order that could be imposed on adults who had engaged or threatened to engage in antisocial behaviour), giving local authorities the ability to impose larger fines for breaching restrictions of behaviours in public spaces, and strengthening police powers to seize off-road bikes. The measures in the bill bring forward some measures initially proposed by the Conservative government in the Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24, but which fell at dissolution before the 2024 general election.

See section 1 of the Library briefing Crime and Policing Bill 2024-25 for more information on these measures.