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Sheffield City Centre

Date published: 13 September 2022 09:05

Welcome message from the Neighbourhood Inspector Gareth Thomas

Hello, I’m Inspector Gareth Thomas and I’m responsible for neighbourhood policing in Sheffield city centre. As a team, we are committed to tackling crime, anti-social behaviour and the issues that affect the community that live and work in the city centre, or visit to enjoy all it has to offer.

I have served as an officer for almost three decades now, and have spent time working on response and proactive teams, as well as in firearms, and most recently neighbourhood policing. I am immensely proud to have taken on this role and I am passionate about the communities we serve.

I am very lucky to work alongside two fantastic Sergeants, and within the team there is a dedicated officer for The Moor and a further that works specifically with the city’s homeless cohort. There are also plans in the pipeline to further expand our city centre team.

We aim to tackle the issues that matter most to you and we work hard to make a difference. For me to best understand what you want from your policing team in the city centre, I need to hear from you.

We know how important it is to be out and about on the ground, listening and engaging with local people and tackling the issues that make them feel unsafe. I know that my officers already have some fantastic links with businesses and residents’ groups, but we can always do better.

There are lots of ways you can contact us directly and I’d encourage you to do so, and if you see our team out and about in the city centre, please do also stop them for a chat. We’re here to listen.

Your local police station is:

Snig Hill Police Station

Snig Hill, Sheffield
S3 8LY

You can contact us:

All our priorities include a partnership approach to problem solving and are as follows:

  • Tackling so called 'street culture' – including issues around ASB, street drinking, drug-use and drug supply
  • Preventing and reducing commercial and residential burglary
  • Reducing serious and violent crime – in particular in the night time economy
  • Addressing vulnerability in the night time economy

You said...

Anti-social behaviour is an issue in your area

We did...

As the covid restrictions have lifted further and more people are out and about, reports of ASB have risen. We have a full patrol plan in place for this and have recently focused our resources on areas identified as hot spots such as Fargate, High Street and Arundel Gate.

Across the course of the year, we have run a number of days of action 'Operation Sidewinder' where we have used a drugs dog and a high visibility approach to tackle ASB, drug supply and drug use. A number of key arrests have been made for a variety of offences, controlled drugs seized and convictions secured.

This proactive work will continue with further days of action planned in aside from our daily targeted patrols of hotspot areas.

You said...

Commercial burglaries are a concern to you.

We did...

Throughout lockdown, we worked hard with businesses to ensure their premises were kept secure from thieves. As lockdown then lifted, commercial burglaries increased and the team proactively patrolled hotspot locations, giving target hardening advice to businesses and disrupting potential offenders.

Between May and October 2021, a number of offenders have been arrested and charged with both commercial burglary and shoplifting offences. A number of them are now serving prison sentences and have been taken out of the equation due to our perseverance in detecting this crime type. We will continue to be proactive in respect of this issue.

The City Centre team PCSOs regularly hold Pop Up Police Stations across the City Centre, Kelham Island and Highfield - they offer support and reassurance to Communities as well as crime prevention advice.

Engagements events have been planned for the following dates:

9.30am-1pm on 14 September - Student engagement stall at The University of Sheffield, Heartspace area, Owen Building 

9.30am-2pm on 15 September - Student engagement stall at The University of Sheffield, Heartspace area, Owen Building

10am-6pm on 17 September - Student engagement stall at The The University of Sheffield, Diamond Building

12-2.20pm on 19 September - Student engagement stall at The Elements, Bramall Lane 

10am-12pm on 20 September - Student engagement stall at The Trigon, Shoreham Street 

29 and 30 September - The University of Sheffield International College, Velocity House, 3 Sully Street (times TBC)

The team are keen to continue to speak to the communities in the areas they cover so if you have any suggestions of meetings they could attend, or want to reach out to the team, please get in touch with us.

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