Council's pioneering crackdown boosts fall in crime

Manchester's Respect Action Week programme, to tackle crime and anti social behaviour, has been so successful that it is being used as the blueprint for a long-term crime plan for the city.

Throughout the Respect programme Manchester City Council, Greater Manchester Police and other agencies worked alongside the community to tackle low-level crime and anti social behaviour. The Respect Action Weeks helped to boost an already downward trend in crime - in the last three years the number of crimes in Manchester has fallen by 14,000.

During the Respect Weeks the council also carried out the biggest consultation operation of it's kind - knocking on more than 30,000 doors across the city to ask what residents wanted for their neighbourhood.

Then the council, along with Greater Manchester Police and other agencies worked together to tackle the issues that residents had raised. Now the council has based its new 2008 - 2011 crime strategy on the Respect format.

Manchester City Council deputy leader, Councillor Jim Battle said: "The Respect Action Weeks were not only an extremely successful way to tackle crime they also demonstrated how closely the council and police work alongside the community. We listened very carefully to residents' concerns and focused on those areas.

"This format was so effective that we are now using it as the basis of the crime strategy for the city, following extensive consultation with the people of Manchester."

The Respect week programme ran in 19 wards from last June until this February. In some wards it was so successful that crime was cut by over half compared to the same week the previous year.

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