As the summer fast approaches, I alongside our senior leadership team have drawn up plans to respond to the anticipated upturn in calls for assistance from the public.

With increased visitor numbers, lighter and warmer evenings, we could expect more instances of crime and anti-social behaviour (ASB).

When balancing our resources with demand, we have to set priorities. These priorities can be force-led such as burglary, vehicle crime, robbery, serious violence and better victim care.

Some of our local priorities on the Island are ASB, drug related harm, domestic abuse, road safety and shoplifting.

We know these local priorities are important as they consistently come back to us when our local police teams engage and ask through surveys.

Last year, reported ASB levels fell and we have some really great partnership initiatives running in places like The Bay area.

But we know it’s still an issue, so I would encourage those being affected to continue to report. If the local team doesn’t know about it they can’t act.

Shoplifting is a problem nationally and particularly when committed by aggressive and violent offenders.

It’s not fair on businesses, shop staff or indeed the honest shoppers who have to witness it.

We have made really strong in-roads with this during the past 12 months with detections increasing to over 70 per cent by the end of March 2024.

However reported shoplifting is up year on year by over 50 per cent.

Safer roads continually gets raised. We’ll continue to work with our mainland Roads Policing colleagues who support our existing Isle of Wight officers through effective operations catching dangerous drivers, including those that drive under the influence of drink and drugs.

Whilst the Island remains a safe place to live and work, we’re not immune to those that peddle misery through illegal drug dealing and the serious violence they inflict at times.

We have an effective Area Crime Team who have had notable successes this year with arrests, drug seizures and convictions.

Finally, domestic abuse will remain a priority for us. It’s a crime that can hurt anyone regardless of age, class or standing in society.

It damages victims physically and mentally and can damage the health and wellbeing of children who grow up experiencing it.

That’s why we will continue to work with our Community Safety partners to protect victims and pursue perpetrators.

It’s going to be a busy summer again, but with our plans I’m confident that our teams will be there to deliver an effective policing service with the same commitment that I see daily.