Peterborough BID steps up the fight against low level crime with launch of app showing 'known offenders' gallery

New action is being taken by Peterborough’s Business Improvement District to fight low-level crime in the retail heart of the city.

A Peterborough Businesses Against Crime partnership has been launched supported by the introduction of a new, free app that levy-paying businesses within the BID area can download.

Powered by Disc, an online platform and digital application designed to help local businesses share information and report crimes, its introduction will help the BID work towards one of its objectives - improving safety in the city centre.

The BID will also look to partner with the night-time economy by introducing the app to PubWatch, as well as the daytime retail sector.

Information provided on Disc includes galleries of known offenders, news alerts, details of upcoming events, useful documents and ‘exclusion schemes’, which are all accessible 24/7.

There is also an instant messaging system which can warn businesses of anti-social behaviour in real-time without infringing data protection laws.

The platform generates a weekly eNewsletter containing up-to-date reports on incidents that have happened within the previous seven days.

The initiative was announced at a meeting of levy paying businesses, held at the Bull Hotel, in Westgate, to review the first six months of the BID and to consider its goals for the year ahead.

Peterborough Positive’s Business Improvement Manager, Pep Cipriano, said: “We have introduced Disc as one of Peterborough Positive’s first projects because creating a safer, more welcoming city centre is a key concern for businesses.

"We have already signed up more than 80 businesses and hope to get as many of our levy payers as possible using the system.”

He said that businesses were encouraged to regularly report low-level crime and anti-social behaviour which will help generate intelligence reports to identify prolific local offenders.

So far, the DISC system is in use in more than 550 towns and city centres nationally.

Steve Lang, Managing Director of Littoralis, the organisation behind the Disc system, said: “We are really pleased to see Peterborough Positive activate our system in the city centre.

"It has been designed to lower local business crime, including anti-social behaviour.

"Businesses are encouraged take advantage of the instant messaging feature on the application to report real-time events and help protect each other from low-level crimes.”

Mr Cipriano also told the meeting that he had so far recruited one of three City Centre Ambassadors with the successful applicant expected to begin in January.

He said: “The recruitment of our City Centre Ambassadors will also help towards making a safer city centre for all by acting as our ‘eyes and ears’ and working alongside Peterborough City Council’s enforcement officers, as well as the city centre policing team.”

Looking ahead to 2023, Mr Cipriano outlined a number of priorities for BID including reintroducing flower planters in Cowgate, creating a new pocket map of the city, action to control anti-social behaviour and a review of city centre CCTV.

David Cramp, vice-chair of Peterborough Positive, which oversees the BID, told about 30 guests that Peterborough’s historic pioneering spirit was very much still present today.