Wolverhampton City Centre — Neighbourhood Policing Team

Anti-social behaviour

During the scorching weather, we have seen an increase in calls for service in the city centre and ongoing calls relating to anti-social behaviour. Last month, I talked about the number of people coming into the city centre in large groups and how this was causing concern. We know this is encouraged via social media platforms and can get out of hand. We understand that young people wish to meet up and socialise and this is a balance we try to strike. We step in where the groups engage in ASB or commit crime and this is something we have seen play out. Officers have been working to identify the young people involved and speak to them with their parents. We try to get them to understand the negative impact on businesses and visitors to the city. Partners are assisting by supporting outreach work and providing details of support and diversionary activities - this is ongoing work. We have been working with partners and representative from Lime following the new cycle provision in the borough. There has been some misuse of the bikes, mostly by under 18's, and we have been responding to calls and re-iterating they should not be used by under 18's or ridden in an unsafe manner. Anti-social behaviour linked to young people remains a priority for us moving into July and August working with colleagues who cover the Bentley Bridge area. The mounted branch will be joining our Home Safe patrols with schools. During July we will continue our patrols of keys locations, Queen Street, Dudley Street, bus station and St Peter Gardens. As the weather improves we will see more people coming into the city centre and we want it to feel a safe place to visit. The lighter nights help with this feeling of safety. We know we have key locations within the city where anti-social behaviour is more likely to occur. Our incident logs provide data to direct our patrols so we are in the right places at the right time. A Public Space Protection Order is in place for the city centre to provide a long term approach to reducing incidents of anti-social behaviour that is committed by groups of people and those wearing face coverings to conceal their identity. Residents, visitors and businesses can enjoy a safer space without fear of confrontation. Report anti-social behaviour so we are aware and can target our patrols. Whilst we always want to reduce the number of crimes that take place, we want recording to be a true reflection of the problems so we will continue to encourage reporting. We are aware the locations can change where anti-social behaviour happens and this can depend on the time of year and weather conditions.

Set: 2026-07-02

Reducing public place violence

As part of our daily work we review 24 hour crime and also understand daily, weekly and monthly data. The city centre still sees violent offences - this refers to both violence with injury and violence without injury offences so includes lower level arguments. During the warmer weather and longer days, we still see slightly elevated numbers in the daytime and night time economy and we are managing ongoing cases. This is predominantly around serious youth violence. This is measured where we have crimes with victims under the age of 25. Some of these offences are linked to the other priority of ASB as issues that start at a low level escalate into bigger problems. We have a policing plan operating around the World Cup events. This will continue throughout July. The city centre teams have had over 50 arrests in June with nearly half being in relation to violence. We have teams out every weekend working to respond to jobs as quickly as possible when incidents are reported to us. Officers also engage with venues earlier in the night. Project Servator operations have seen officers from across Wolverhampton come and work in the city centre. Officers from the city centre teams are regularly joined by officers from our Guardian Taskforce and they have done a number of deployments over the last 4 weeks. This work is ongoing and look out for updates on social media and in local press. We are encouraged to see that members of the public are reporting crimes to police and city centre premises. Crime figures alone do not tell the whole story and although we see a rise in some offence types being reported to us, we hope this is the public trusting we will act on the information and get an outcome in line with their wishes.

Set: 2026-07-02

Safer Towns initiative

1st July saw the launch of our summer initiative in the city centre where we work to make the city feel safer. We have set ourselves priorities and these are joint objectives with our partners in the Community Safety Team and wider partnership. We are looking to respond to calls promptly, ensure we complete our mandated patrols in high crime areas, carry out weekly safer nights engagements and patrols and sustain high levels of arrests and positive outcomes for robbery, theft from person, violence and retail crime related matters. I will post updates around our progress but please look out for the #safertownssummer on social media.

Set: 2026-07-02