The first Hertfordshire Retail Crime Forum has been hosted by the Police and Crime Commissioner Jonathan Ash-Edwards.

Over a hundred representatives from retailers and partner organisations attended the event to discuss how they could best work together to reduce shoplifting, business crime and assaults on staff.

Held at the Tesco headquarters in Welwyn Garden City on Friday (June 13) the day was organised by Mr Ash-Edwards in response to the heightened public and business concern around retail crime.

As well as independent retailers, major businesses present included B&Q, Boots, John Lewis, Halfords, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Tesco. Other partners present included representatives from local councils, Business Improvement Districts and staff from the major shopping centres in the county.

The Forum aims to accelerate collaboration between national and independent retailers, business groups, and the police and key partners to address retail crime and improve crime prevention and business confidence in Hertfordshire.

Jonathan Ash-Edwards, Police and Crime Commissioner for Hertfordshire, said:

“Retail crime is unacceptable and is having a significant impact on our shops, retail workers and town centres. Shop theft has reached record levels nationally and Hertfordshire is not immune from this trend.

“Hertfordshire police record around 28 cases of shop theft or robbery every day. Behind the statistics there are real consequences for people who use or work in these shops. Business and shop keepers also have to bear the costs of lost goods and increased expense of security guards. For many independent retailers, the impact of shop theft feels really personal. The vitality of our high streets and town centres is crucial to Hertfordshire’s economic success.

“Progress is being made in Hertfordshire. The number of shop thefts being solved is rising. We’ve made clear the police will take action whatever the value of the goods stolen; there is no ‘£200 limit’ in Hertfordshire. And over the last year, Operation Hotspot has put 26,000 hours of additional high visibility police patrols into town centres with overall crime and anti-social behaviour in the hotspots down 14.5%.

“But there is more that can be done locally to prevent, reduce and solve retail crime. That’s why I wanted to bring retailers, police and community safety partners together to have an honest conversation about what more can be done on all sides. Following the Forum, we will be working in partnership to implement tangible actions to bear down on retail crime in the county.

“The bottom line for me is that people should be able to enjoy their town centres safely and I want Hertfordshire to be a county where retail crime is not tolerated”.

Other speakers included the Chief Constable Andy Prophet, Tesco Director of Security Rachel Bennett and Alan Mundin, a Director of Zoohause in St Albans.

Workshops on the day involved crime prevention advice for retailers; how retailers can support crime investigations; supporting victims and witnesses when they appear in court and using civil orders to tackle prolific shoplifters.

The Commissioner’s new Police and Crime Plan for Hertfordshire has prioritised tackling shop theft and wider crime that affects retailers. His plan set out how the police should take a collaborative approach to tackling retail crime across the entire county, improving crime prevention and reporting and improving the confidence of retailers.

Chief Constable Andy Prophet told the Forum: “In Hertfordshire last year we had around 100,000 crimes and 10,000 of those were shop theft and retail crime. But the people who are committing these crimes will be involved in other criminality around town centres, such as car theft, harassment and dealing drugs. If we concentrate on these people, where they are operating and we work with the people who are affected, then we can make a difference.

“In Hertfordshire we have a dedicated team looking at shop theft and retail crime patterns. We call it Operation Rinse. The focus is to understand and crack down on prolific offenders and work with stores to reduce offending where levels are too high. There is absolutely a partnership. The police have a key role to play to driving down crime but so do multi-million pound businesses who ask customers to visit their stores. Better CCTV, more security patrols and sensible product placement are easy things retailers can and should be doing.

“I would encourage retailers to share cctv images with us via the digital sharing platform we have established. Those images can be quickly searched against our police databases and offenders identified and arrested. We want to work with retailers to get this right in Hertfordshire, to identify more offenders and take action against them.”

Going forward Mr Ash-Edwards intends to create a working group called Hertfordshire Against Retail Crime to continue to improve relationships between the police, shops and partners, and to take forward the ideas raised at the forum.

“I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to attend the Forum and for Tesco for hosting the event. I am keen that it will be a launch pad for us all to build on and reduce retail crime across Hertfordshire.”