Column: Let's work together on crime

For our first Operation Duxford in November we concentrated on tackling drugs in Burngreave, modern slavery, antisocial behaviour and traffic offences.

This time, Duxford focused on partnership working across the east of the city, based on information passed to us by our local residents, businesses and partner agencies about the issues affecting them in their area.

I’m pleased with what we achieved as a partnership and I’m really grateful to the organisations that came together to tackle some of the issues that matter most to the public of Sheffield.

I know there will be questions about why we only concentrated on the east of Sheffield and the answer is this is where our communities raised some concerns that needed a dedicated partnership response.

I hope those communities feel reassured by the significant number of arrests made, more than 20, and by the concentrated presence of police and other agencies in their area on that day. I hope those residents who raised concerns with us about antisocial behaviour, suspected drugs offences and other criminality feel that they have been listened to and that some of their concerns have been addressed.

I also hope the activity sends a firm message to anyone in Sheffield who is committing crimes that sooner or later, police will catch up with you and we will hold you to account.

However, it’s not just about how many people we can lock up in one day. A key part of Operation Duxford is to engage with our local communities and there were a range of events across the east of the city to encourage people to come and speak to our officers and tell us about what’s going on in their area.

This isn’t a one-off event and there will be future Operation Duxfords in Sheffield, as there will be across the other parts of South Yorkshire.

What I would say to anyone who has any issues in their area that you feel needs a police or partnership response, please get in touch with us.

Tackling crime and making Sheffield the safest place to live, work and visit can’t be done by police alone – we must all work together as residents of this city to talk about what crimes are affecting our lives. If we get enough information about a particular issue, this could well feature in our next Operation Duxford.