Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle crime in (a) town centres and (b) Eastbourne town centre.

Creating Safer Town Centres is a top priority for this Government and a key part of our Safer Streets Mission. This Government wants town centres to be vibrant, welcoming places where businesses thrive and people feel safe to come to shop, socialise and live.

That is why this Government has awarded £66.3 million in Hotspot Action funding to all 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales in 2025/6.

The Hotspot Action Fund will increase visible uniformed patrols in town centres and other areas most impacted by knife crime, serious violence and anti-social behaviour. The Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner has been awarded £1,436,889 as part of this funding. It will be for the PCC to decide how that money is used across the force area, including Eastbourne.

This Government has additionally made £200m available to forces in 2025/26 to kickstart the delivery of our commitment to have 13,000 more neighbourhood officers across England and Wales by the end of this Parliament. This investment will be used to enhance local policing capacity, with Sussex Police’s projected growth over 2025 to 2026 to be 43 police officers (FTE), and 21 Special Constables. We are delivering more police on our streets, tackling the crimes that blight our town centres.

The Safer Streets Summer initiative will run from 30 June to the end of September 2025. The primary goal is to prevent crime and disorder and increase meaningful and visible consequences for the minority who feel it is acceptable to cause this scourge on society.

Over 500 town centres and thousands of shops will benefit from increased police patrols and local action to tackle town centre crime and anti-social behaviour with the launch of the Government’s Safer Streets Summer Initiative across England and Wales. In Sussex, they will be focussing on over 20 locations as part of the initiative, including Eastbourne.