Housing Sustainability Matters Number 1 - Designing Out Crime
- Over the last 2 years Lambeth has invested £2m for crime prevention on estates.
- This has helped lead to an overall 22% fall in estate burglaries.
- Regeneration schemes create the opportunity to design out crime.
- Secured by Design (SBD) is a standard to which Lambeth Housing is committed. Secured by Design website
Housing renewal
Refurbishments and renewal offer a great opportunity to design out crime. Cowley EMB accessed Home Office CCTV funding to put 175 cameras in streets and communal areas in the Vassall district. As a result, 2 serious crimes have been solved, and police reports on street crime and burglary have been very positive. However, there have been financial implications for the residents, so satisfaction with the scheme has varied.
Classic features to watch out for
- Honeypots - Places such as fast food take-away restaurants that encourage people to congregate and remain longer in an area than they would otherwise do
- Hotspots - Places where criminal or social misbehaviour becomes concentrated
- Fear Generators - Places which cause a perception of fear and become abandoned to anti-social acts and behaviour
Simple advice
- Shut and lock your doors and windows, even if you're only popping out for five minutes
- Make sure your valuables are not on show (including car keys) and lock away passports and official documents
- If you buy new items like DVD players, don't leave the empty boxes by the bins
- Mark your property - this makes goods a lot harder to sell on
What to do next
Using Secured by Design principles, help is available for you to specify the most secure doors, locks, windows and other materials. The windows and security to dwellings briefs are SBD approved. These are available on the Lambeth Sustainable Construction web site.
Secured by Design
To achieve Secured by Design, initial contact must take place between the client and the Police Architectural Liaison Officer (ALO)/ Crime Prevention Design Advisor (CPDA) at the earliest possible opportunity, when the initial sketch plans are under discussion and before a planning application is made.
Web resources
Secured by Design website
Home Office - staying safe at home
Useful contacts at Lambeth