Stroll around the historic market town of Bridgwater, Somerset, on a quiet weekday and you’ll be seduced by its old-world charm. Grand Victorian architecture lines its streets, which include a bustling library. Stop for a pint at The Fountain Inn overlooking the River Parrett, and the friendly locals greet you with a soft West Country burr. This week, there’s even a market show championing local traders.
Thanks to its location just off the M5, it is also seen as the epicentre of business in the region; the new £30bn plant being built at Hinkley Nuclear Power Plant is less than a 30-minute drive away.
But for all its merits, Bridgwater – like so many other towns in the country – has a dark side dragging it down. It is blighted by petty crime and anti-social behaviour.
In recent years, its shops have been plagued by youths who steal with impunity – often wearing terrifying masks and some carrying knives. And should you stand at the bottom of the high street, even before the clock on the parish church of St Mary’s strikes midday, you will find the menacing presence of a dozen or so men – some homeless, or in halfway houses following their recent release from prison. They generally loiter about and drink, and have been seen openly taking drugs.
These threats both to shopkeepers and local residents alike have become so prevalent, the town is slowly being destroyed.
Bridgwater, then, is a prime example of what home secretary Yvette Cooper says is an area blighted by “silent crimes” – nuisance, theft, shoplifting, assaults. These are crimes that go under-reported but cause extensive misery to society.
At the Labour Party Conference this week, she promised a crackdown on such behaviour, which will come from investment in 13,000 new police officers and Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs), along with guaranteed local patrols.
In addition to this, she said that police will be given powers to target persistent offenders with ‘respect orders’ – a revamped form of ASBOs – that will allow them to ban offenders from city centres.
There will also be a new specific offence created of assaulting a shopworker, after extensive campaigning by shop workers union USDAW and the Co-op.
In Bridgwater, this may be too little, too late. Some independent shops have closed altogether and stand empty while others – such as Boots – have boarded up their windows with plywood, the glass having been recently smashed by local youths. One local tells us he won’t bring his toddler into town, in case there is violence or swearing.
“Bridgwater is a great place to live, and the people are brilliant,” says the town’s Conservative MP Ashley Fox. “But as in so many other areas, anti-social behaviour is a big issue. “We need to stop the culture where people are given benefits that they can spend on drink without either being given the help they need to get over their addictions or maintain constructive employment. “Having men loiter on the street is unwelcoming both for shoppers and businesses. If the Home Secretary is willing to tackle this scourge then good, but it has to be more than soundbites in a speech. We need to see improvements on the ground.”
At Coffee#1, a café halfway up the high street, Deacon Greenwood, the assistant manager, also greets the idea of a crackdown with scepticism.
“Crime is out of control and has been for a long time,” he says. “The homeless men are a big problem. We used to let them use our toilets but then we found needles in there so stopped. Now they just defecate around the side of our coffee shop as the council hasn’t opened any public loos. It’s horrendous.”
He adds that the gangs of teenagers who target the shops sometimes wear masks with smiley faces on to make them even more sinister.
“We all know who they are,” he adds. “I know the names of some of them. But nothing is done as they are young – 13 or 14 or so. They came in here last week and trashed our upstairs, kicking stuff over and swearing at the staff. The whole town has been destroyed by this, and I do notice that new shops are springing up just out of town away from it all. I don’t know what difference new powers might make because it just seems these kids get away with anything because they are so young.”
It is a similar story up and down the high street. Some shopkeepers even show us CCTV of brazen children – some still in their school uniform – pressing themselves behind shop counters in order to steal vapes. Others say that youths lie scaffolding poles on the local train tracks, or jump on to local trains and pull the emergency cord.
For the manager of the outdoor clothing shop Millets, Carina Dimitrescu, the problem has become worse since Covid. It’s been fuelled by the cost of living crisis, and the fact children know they can get away with stealing. “Kids come in and just run out with hats and gloves,” she says, “or they bring a bunch of items to the counter, get out their card to pretend to pay and then run. The homeless also come to steal North Face jackets and sell them for a pittance to get their fix. I used to ring the police but now don’t bother except for the worst cases, and even then they don’t come. The worst theft recently was someone who stole a whole shelf of T-shirts for about £400. I saw them in town the next day wearing one.”
As she is unable to stop her stock from being stolen in broad daylight, Dimitrescu has few options left to her. “If I see the kids coming, I close the shop doors,” she adds. “Yes, we lose customers but what can we do? And even when I close them, I know the kids may kick them in as they are violent.”
Like her local MP she is not sure any new crackdown by the Home Secretary will work. “The problems have been here for so long. Why is no one prosecuted? Or even fined?” she asks. “Why is it legal to wear a mask down a street in broad daylight? Why are the police so under-resourced that we don’t even report this? It makes me so angry. In Romania, where I am from, you do not have this issue. I’d like to grab these kids, and catch them. But of course then I would go to prison.”
This issue is not just confined to Bridgwater. According to the Office for National Statistics, 2023 was the worst year on record for shoplifting, with more than 430,000 cases recorded across the UK, up more than a third from the year before.
The British Independent Retailers Association (Bira) says that one in two small firms are affected by the rise in shoplifting. Meanwhile, the British Retail Consortium reported violence and abuse against shopworkers is up by 50 per cent – to 1,300 a day – in the year to September 2023.
But this town at least is trying to fight back. Every Friday afternoon at Coffee#1, the local council runs a youth group in a bid to tackle anti-social behaviour. “There are drinks and board games, and it’s a good idea,” says Greenwood. “But to be honest, no one comes.” Local businesses have held meetings to discuss the issue, because, as one trader, who went by the name Katie, told the BBC: “Money is just falling out [of our businesses] because we can’t afford to keep trading when footfall has halved.”
In February the local council took the relatively extreme decision to increase the council tax precept to help fund the local police. It followed a 12-week consultation with fed-up residents, which found that 70 per cent supported an increase of £10 or more to boost police resources, and 45 per cent supported an increase of £20. In practice, the increase has resulted in residents in an average Band D property – worth £68,000 to £88,000 – paying £13 more a year.
Indeed, on our visit, the police were out in force. At one point, four community officers were seen helping retrieve a man with dementia who had escaped from a local hospital. While another spent much of the day beneath the Victorian Corn Exchange chatting to locals. “I don’t know what powers the new Home Secretary can bring in,” said one policeman of the new planned crackdown.
“We already have powers to ban disorderly people and move them on. We often do move on groups of men, but it just pushes the problem elsewhere.” Despite the visible policing, however, some are sceptical that anything is actually being done, especially to tackle the youths.
As one local resident, in his early thirties, said: “I tell my partner not to come into town, and definitely not to bring our two-year-old with her if she does. She came in once and just got sworn at so it’s not worth it.
“I come in alone to the town centre from time to time and you see the police chatting and laughing with the kids who cause the trouble. They don’t do anything about it. Come on Saturday, then you’ll see bow little the police do when the gangs are smashing up shops. So even if they have new powers, what will actually change?
“Bridgwater used to be okay and there’s so much potential here, especially with the nuclear plants close by. But now we all try to avoid it. It’s so sad.”
