Making our City Safer
On 1st October 2022 we will be holding a free community event to update fellow citizens about our Safer Salisbury initiative. We hope that members of the public will come along to hear our guest speakers, watch demonstrations and visit the displays by many organisations working on safety and wider issues.
The main speakers at 1.30pm will be Dame Vera Baird, until recently the Victims’ Commissioner for England, who is passionate about justice especially with reference to women and girls. She will talk about why the words we use matter and how everyday language has so much influence.
We will also hear from Philip Wilkinson the recently appointed Police and Crime Commissioner for Wiltshire. In a year in which our local police force was put into special measures this is an opportunity to hear their plans for the future and put your questions to the Commissioner.
The Wiltshire Police strategy for tackling violence against women and girls will be explained by DS Sarah Robbins.
This event is a follow up to our successful conference last year which brought together organisations in Salisbury and further afield with members of the public to discuss ways in which safety in Salisbury could be improved. A number of strategies were identified and these have been pursued during the year.
Salisbury Soroptimists conducted a series of night audits around the city looking at places where streetlighting is either inadequate, or not working. Findings were reported to the city council, the county council and National Roads depending under whose authority the lights fell!
We felt that it was important to include young people in our initiative and a delegation from Godolphin School came to the conference. They followed this up by holding a Schools’ Forum to which other schools were invited to hear speakers and share their views.
Community Art Workshop
An exciting addition to this year’s event will be a community workshop after the main speakers. This will be led by James Gough to explore how we can use arts and creativity to make our public places/spaces, safer and more inclusive. Ideas generated will contribute to a community art project called ‘Materialise’, supported by Salisbury BID , Salisbury International Arts Festival and Salisbury City Council. Materialise is a programme of projects that explore how to embed culture in the everyday life of Salisbury.
Demonstrations in the Banqueting Hall
2.30 pm Live Safely will demonstrate some self-defence techniques.
3.00 pm Brenan Jeynes, on behalf of Salisbury Pubwatch, will talk about how to spot and help vulnerable people on a night out
3.30 pm A CCTV volunteer will explain what they do and talk about some of their experiences.
4.00pm Home Instead will explain how to avoid online scams
Displays
Throughout the event, there will be informative displays in the Banqueting Hall:
- Street Pastors
- Ask for Angela
- Alice Ruggles Trust
- Bobby Van Trust
- White Ribbon Campaign
- Safe Places
- Splitz
- Streetlighting Audits
Come along to find out about these amazing organisations and the work they do around the city and elsewhere. Ask questions and contribute your ideas for making our city a safer place to live, work and have fun.