Last week was National Business Crime Reduction Partnership (BCRP) Awareness Week. (More about this here). VANEL was pleased to be connecting to this through our involvement with GRIP (Grimsby Retailers in Partnership) and our ongoing community safety connections. From our 82 Grimsby Road offices in Cleethorpes we’re closely connected to the Grimsby Road members of the GRIP network.
BCRPs are not for profit membership organisations aimed at preventing crime and antisocial behaviour in town centres and shopping areas by working together as a business community with the police, local authority, and other local partners to help keep shopping and traders safe. There are over 250 BCRPs across the UK, including the GRIP scheme in Grimsby and Cleethorpes.
This partnership approach between local businesses and stakeholders enables the identification of known offenders at a much earlier stage than would be possible, with collaboration and sharing of local knowledge preventing offenders remaining anonymous and enabling them to be brought to justice more effectively.
The GRIP scheme currently operates four separate networks in Grimsby Town Centre, Freeman Street, Grimsby Road, and St Peter’s Avenue Cleethorpes. All networks offer 2-way radios, access to the DISC app which shares local intelligence to help stop crime and enables us all to work together more effectively to prevent crime in real time.
Humberside Police Neighbourhood Policing teams in each of the four GRIP network areas carry a GRIP radio when on duty to help with crime prevention. They are supported by the CCTV control centre, Freshney Place Security team and ASB officers in Grimsby Town Centre and a community worker on Freeman Street, Grimsby Road, and St Peter’s Avenue.
In addition, GRIP and its partners take an active part in various police drop-in sessions, days and weeks of action and operations organised by the police, designed to raise awareness of wider community safety matters with the general public and show support, signpost to other ways of helping prevent and deter crime in our neighbourhoods.
There’s more information about GRIP on the 2025 Group website here: https://www.2025group.com/ If you want to find out more please contact:
liam.oswin@freshneyplace.co.uk
peter@capacitybuildgings.org.uk
paula@vanel.org.uk
or any of the neighbourhood policing teamswhere your business is based for further information.