Police visibility across Peterborough has increased since last year
Cambridgeshire Constabulary says it has increased its visibility to the public within Peterborough and across the region.
Commissioner for Cambridgeshire & Peterborough, Darryl Preston, shared the update as he reported to members of the Police and Crime Panel at Sand Martin House yesterday (March 11).
“Between October [2025] and the end of January [2026] an extra 12,500 hours of additional patrols were carried as a result of the Hotspot Action Fund,” he said.
The Hot Spot Action Fund is a Home Office-funded initiative which enables police forces to deploy high-visibility patrols in areas with high rates of serious violence and antisocial behaviour.
Mr Preston said having police on the streets in such a way was “about reassurance.”
“Police visibility is important,” he acknowledged: “we know that from our residents.”
Peterborough city centre saw an additional 1779 hours of visible patrol hours over the period Mr Preston highlighted.
Elsewhere in the city, Lincoln Road clocked up 539 additional hours, while Viersen Platz/Rivergate saw an increase of 214.
Mr Preston’s report showed that 95 additional hours were also seen in the ‘Peterborough Knife Hex’. This is a carefully mapped area in central Peterborough – roughly the size of 10 football pitches – where knife crime and violence are most concentrated.
The reprt also noted that the Constabulary received £749,456 from the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee between June 2025 and January 2026. This, the Commissioner said, has enabled the force to increase its visibility even more:
“We have an additional 30 officers now aligned to neighbourhood policing teams,” he explained.
While Mr Preston said the increase was “encouraging,” he acknowledged the force is still “some way off” fully complying with the government’s policy to have 13,000 extra recruits, who will be a mixture of PCSOs, police officers and volunteers (Special Constabulary).
Elsewhere, Mr Preston confirmed that the force had successfully complied with other areas of the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, saying “all residents now have a named police officer dedicated to the area,” and that “there is a requirement for those officers to respond to concerns within 24 hours.”