Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the helpful comments on a draft of this paper of Professor Richard Schneider (University of Florida) and Police Architectural Liaison Officers, Peter Knowles (Bedfordshire) and Stephen Town (Bradford).
Notes
1. The Secured by Design website (www.securedbydesign.com) summarises its relationship with the guidance in “Safer Places” as follows: “The 2004 publication by the ODPM, “Safer Places : The Planning System and Crime Prevention”, firmly establishes this subject within the planning process and identifies Secured by Design as a successful model” (paragraph 1.4 of its “Secured by Design Principles” document).
2. As part of its general reforms of the planning system, the Government has consulted on possible changes to Use Class A3 because within this are included some activities such as hot food take-aways which can be the source of local controversy. Depending upon the final outcome of this process, therefore, this element of the Bedfordshire agreement may need to be updated.
3. The Dudley S.P.G. has probably achieved the highest profile of all the recent S.P.G. documents published about planning for crime prevention, and it is referred to in “Safer Places”. It is regarded in some police ALO quarters as being controversial, however, because (rather like “Safer Places”) it accepts the validity of permeable layouts.
4. Interestingly, the Blackthorn CASPAR project relates to a post-war estate built as part of a town expansion scheme. So this is an example of action in the field of planning for crime prevention tackling problems created in part by the design approach adopted in a previous planning exercise.