Local Requirements - Crime Impact Statement

Types of application or development that require this information

• Residential developments where 10 or more units are created (including changes of use)
• All other developments where 1000 sqm gross or more of floor space is proposed
• Proposals for, schools, day nurseries or creches over 150sqm
• Proposals for health care facilities over 150sqm
• Proposals for new hotels over 150sqm
• Proposals for community centres or meeting halls and places of worship over 150sqm
• Proposals for late night economy pubs, bars, nightclubs, takeaways, restaurants 
• Proposals which involve areas of outdoor seating
• Proposals for new leisure or recreation facilities or significant extensions or alterations to existing facilities
• Proposals for houses in multiple occupation, and student accommodation
• Proposals for children's homes
• Proposals for car parks involving the creation of more than 50 parking spaces
• Development involving the creation of critical significant infrastructure for example water, gas, electricity
• Proposals for new transport infrastructure, for example tram, bus, coach, train stations or significant extensions or alterations to existing facilities
• Proposals for cash machines located outside a building or in a public space
• Proposals for security shutters

What information is required?

Applicants are required to demonstrate that development proposals have been designed and built to minimise the risk of crime and maximise safety for the community.

A Crime Risk Statement should be submitted which follows the five Crime Prevention through Environmental Design principles (CPTED) and sets out the crime prevention measures proposed. This should include consideration of:

• Surveillance - Residents must be able to survey what is happening in and around public spaces, from inside and outside the properties. This should include:
  • Consideration of the location of windows in active rooms, for example kitchens and living rooms in relation to entrances, play areas, tandem parking bays and footpath routes in order to increase natural surveillance.
• Movement control - Creating buildings, enclosures and spaces, which help the residents of that space to keep out potential offenders. This should include details of:
  • Access control measures on communal entrances, internal communal doors or lifts in larger apartment blocks which can restrict stranger access both into and around a building
  • Direct routes whether internally or externally which mark out a route or pathway and have good connectivity and are overlooked.  
• Management and maintenance - Ongoing Management Plans to be in place to maintain the site appearance and security including:
  • How outdoor green spaces will be maintained to prevent anti social behaviour such as fly tipping and littering
  • Any proposals to upgrade building security and the frequency of maintenance checks to ensure that security features are in fully working order.
• Defensible space - The physical creation of defensible space aims to create the residents territorial control over that space. This should includes details of:
  • Boundary treatments around garden spaces and commercial car parks
  • Security measures such as lockable gates to restrict access into parking area 
  • Planting to be used to create or define areas of ownership for example front boundary treatments and front plot dividers
  • Any proposed demarcation of private and public areas.
• Physical security - Includes the initial design of doors, windows, fences and other physical structures or measures to increase the difficulty for offenders in entering a building or space.

Any physical security measures to be implemented shall seek to achieve the ‘Secured by Design’ accreditation as assessed by West Yorkshire Police. [add link to webpage]

The Crime Impact Statement should be incorporated into a Design and Access Statement where one is required to be submitted. This should be made clear in the title of the document. 

Further information

• Armitage R. (2013) Crime Prevention through Housing Design: Policy and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan: Crime Prevention and Security Management Book Series.
• Armitage, R. and Monchuk, L. (2018) What is CPTED? Reconnecting Theory with Application in the Words of Users and abusers. Policing A Journal of Policy and Practice.
• Armitage, R, and Monchuk, L (2011) Sustaining the Crime Reduction Impact of Secured by Design: 1999 to 2009. Security Journal, 24 (4), p. 320-343.
• Link to secured by design guidance

Policy driver

• National Planning Policy Framework - Chapter 8: Promoting health and safe communities
• National Planning Policy Framework - Chapter 12: Achieving well-designed places
• Local Plan Core Strategy – Policy DS5 Safe and Inclusive Places
• Supplementary Planning Document - A shop keepers guide to securing their premises
• Supplementary Planning Document - Planning for crime prevention
• Homes and Neighbourhoods: a guide to designing in Bradford SPD
• Supplementary Planning Document - Hot Food Takeaways