Community safety survey 2023: How can we make Buckinghamshire safer?

Every year, the Safer Buckinghamshire Board runs a survey to understand community safety concerns from the past 12 month, including: 

• the impact of crime and anti-social behaviour in your area 
• your experience of reporting crimes 
• how safe or unsafe you feel 

The survey ran from 11 September to 29 October 2023.

We received 872 online responses.  

We asked if crime and anti-social behaviour had impacted you in the past 12 months: 

• Fraud was report as the crime impacting the most:  
  • 94 respondents had been directly affected by fraud 
  • 127 respondents had witnessed fraud 
• Criminal damage had the second most impact: 
  • 31 respondents had been victims of criminal damage 
  • 80 respondents had witnessed criminal damage 
• Cybercrime had the second most victims: 
  • 35 respondents had been victims 
  • 71 respondents had witnessed cybercrime 

We asked if you have any other community safety concerns where you live, work or study: 

• Lack of police presence was the highest concern identified  
• Anti-social driving, including speeding and racing 
• Drugs including drug use and drug litter 

We asked about your experience of reporting crime: 

• 298 of respondents had been a victim of crime in the last 12 months 
• 32% (95) of respondents did not report that they had been a victim of crime 
• of the respondents that had been a victim of crime but did not report it: 
  • 28% believed there was little chance of catching the perpetrator 
  • 19% believed it was too trivial to report 
  • 12% believed it was a waste of time to report it  
  • 12% had a previous bad experience of the police

We asked how safe or unsafe you feel in your local area, in town centres, and in parks and open spaces in the daylight and after dark: 

Of the respondents that answered these questions: 

• 88% felt safe outside in the daylight, alone 
• 47% felt safe outside in the dark, alone 
• 85% felt safe in the town centres in the daylight 
• 31% felt safe in town centres after dark 
• 84% felt safe in parks in the daylight 
• 21% felt safe in parks after dark 

As outlined in The Safer Buckinghamshire Strategy 2023 - 2026, our intention is for Buckinghamshire to be one of the safest places to grow up, raise a family, live, work and do business. 

To support this, we have five partnership priorities: 

• neighbourhood crime – working in partnership to tackle crime hotspots and raise awareness of fraud, scams and cybercrime 
• anti-social behaviour – tackling repeat victimisation and encouraging reporting as well as working with partners to address concerns 
• serious violence – raising awareness and supporting early intervention / prevention for young people at risk 
• violence against women and girls – education and training of professionals to increase awareness and increasing confidence in reporting 

• exploitation of vulnerable people – identifying places where there is an exploitation risk and making sure communities can recognise the signs and report concerns 

The priorities focus on known causes of crime and concerns of people in Buckinghamshire. Each priority has a partnership action plan – to reduce crime and increase community safety.  

In March 2024, the findings of the community safety survey were presented to the Safer Buckinghamshire Board. Your views will help partners to shape these actions plans for the coming year, to ensure we are focussing our efforts on the issues that matter to those that live, work and study in Buckinghamshire. 

More information about each priority, and how the partnership will deliver them, is in the Safer Buckinghamshire Strategy 2023 to 2026.