Wolverhampton City Centre

Anti-social behaviour

Since our last update, we have seen an improved position in terms of anti-social behaviour relating to young people. We had a policing plan in place for the end of the school term and officers from across Wolverhampton came into the city centre to support our team. We did not have any calls for service or crimes that day and we were grateful that no members of the public felt unsafe in the city as a result of large groups of people being present. We have also seen a decrease in problems relating to the mis-use of Lime bikes but this is something we are monitoring.

On 30th June 2026 we served a closure notice on The Hair Shop, Lichfield Street as a result of chronic anti-social behaviour and exploitation concerns. This shut the shop with immediate effect. On 2nd July we attended Walsall Magistrates Court and presented information in support of a closure order. This was granted by the court and shut the shop for a further 3 months. We take a stepped approach to dealing with anti-social behaviour but this was deemed necessary given concerns around young people being able to access illicit vapes and criminal activity linked to the premises.

Anti-social behaviour linked to young people remains a priority for us throughout August.

During August we will continue our patrols of keys locations, Queen Street, Dudley Street, bus station and St Peter Gardens.

As the weather improves we will see more people coming into the city centre and we want it to feel a safe place to visit. The lighter nights help with this feeling of safety.

We know we have key locations within the city where anti-social behaviour is more likely to occur. Our incident logs provide data to direct our patrols so we are in the right places at the right time. A Public Space Protection Order is in place for the city centre to provide a long term approach to reducing incidents of anti-social behaviour that is committed by groups of people and those wearing face coverings to conceal their identity. Residents, visitors and businesses can enjoy a safer space without fear of confrontation.

Report anti-social behaviour so we are aware and can target our patrols. Whilst we always want to reduce the number of crimes that take place, we want recording to be a true reflection of the problems so we will continue to encourage reporting. We are aware the locations can change where anti-social behaviour happens and this can depend on the time of year and weather conditions.

Reducing public place violence

We had a policing operation in place during July in anticipation of World Cup fever and increased calls for service in venues and residential properties. It seems to have passed quickly since my last update and now we move to finalise planning for Christmas. Officers reported a good atmosphere in the city centre as more people came in to watch the games and meet up with friends.

Every Friday and Saturday night we continue to have dedicated night-time economy officers working until the early hours. They visit city centre venues and work with security teams to prevent violence and disorder. They also carry out patrols to identify perpetrators of physical and sexual violence. Officers are regularly involved in searches for missing or people in crisis, leading to us being able to get support.

On an almost daily basis, our officers carry out targeted Guardian patrols in key hot spot areas. We now have a new additional area to patrol and focus our efforts with a view to reducing knife related crime. The concentrated area sees officers carry out regular patrols and work with partners from the local authority to consider problem solving activity in addition to a focus on pursuing offenders. We are hoping the closure of the Hair Shop will reduce activity in and around Lichfield Street and Wulfruna Street.

Officers from the city centre teams are regularly joined by officers from our Guardian Taskforce and they have done a number of deployments over the last 4 weeks. This work is ongoing and look out for updates on social media and in local press.

As part of our daily work we review 24 hour crime and also understand daily, weekly and monthly data. The city centre still sees violent offences - this refers to both violence with injury and violence without injury offences so includes lower level arguments. During the warmer weather and longer days, we still see slightly elevated numbers in the daytime and night time economy and we are managing ongoing cases. This is predominantly around serious youth violence. This is measured where we have crimes with victims under the age of 25. Some of these offences are linked to the other priority of ASB as issues that start at a low level escalate into bigger problems.

Project Servator operations have seen officers from across Wolverhampton come and work in the city centre.

We are encouraged to see that members of the public are reporting crimes to police and city centre premises. Crime figures alone do not tell the whole story and although we see a rise in some offence types being reported to us, we hope this is the public trusting we will act on the information and get an outcome in line with their wishes.

Safer Towns initiative

1st July saw the launch of our summer initiative in the city centre where we work to make the city feel safer. We have set ourselves priorities and these are joint objectives with our partners in the Community Safety Team and wider partnership.

We are looking to respond to calls promptly, ensure we complete our mandated patrols in high crime areas, carry out weekly safer nights engagements and patrols and sustain high levels of arrests and positive outcomes for robbery, theft from person, violence and retail crime related matters.

In the first 4 weeks there has been a number of arrests of shoplifters in the city centre. On such offender was charged with 13 offences, one of the highest number of offences we have seen for some time on our sector. On 30th July we charged a female with two theft from the person offences that occurred in 2025. We have been looking for this person for months, keen to arrest her for targeting elderly victims as part of her offending. Officers invested a significant amount of time in CCTV and other enquiries to enable us to have good quality evidence for charges. She is now on bail to stay out of the city centre having been charged to court. We know these offences have a significant impact on their victims and we all want a positive outcome.

Please look out for the #safertownssummer on social media.