Business crime (particularly theft), anti-social behaviour, and poor perceptions of safety are prevalent in many city centres in the UK. Retail crime has hit the headlines nationally. According to the British Retail Consortium’s Retail Crime Survey in 2025, retailers spent a staggering £1.8bn on crime prevention measures just in one year. This is a massive sum, which ultimately is a cost passed onto the consumer, but it highlights the challenge that all towns and cities across the UK face. This topic is regularly used as a political football with aspirations to make things better for all.
What we are witnessing in Leeds is a refreshed, strategic, and innovative approach to tackling issues of business crime and anti-social behaviour, a recognition that it is only through true collaboration that we can deter this negative behaviour and make the city centre a safer place for all.
In 2024, businesses in the heart of Leeds stated quite clearly that Leeds Business Improvement District should take an active role in the challenges of safety and business crime reduction. In response to this, during 2025, it rose to the challenge, merging with and taking on day-to-day operational responsibility for the previous business crime partnership known to many as BACIL, and breathed new life and investment into it. In April 2026, Leeds Business Crime Reduction Partnership (LeedsBCRP) was launched by LeedsBID, with a quarter of a million pounds worth of investment into new technology, additional expertise, and new staff. LeedsBCRP is endorsed and supported by West Yorkshire Police and Leeds City Council. All businesses in the centre of Leeds have access to the new partnership, providing a city radio network (linking to each other, and to the council’s city-wide CCTV system) and the DISC app, providing an intelligence sharing portal, which creates a network of communication and action to deter city centre business crime, and anti-social behaviour.
Police too have invested in new facial recognition technology, following key national high street businesses, identifying offenders, often prolific, who create a negative experience in Leeds. Known faces can be quickly challenged.
The council too has ambitions to improve the pedestrian core through the Briggate Action Plan and by implementing public protection spaces orders. These statutory measures are a welcome accompaniment alongside the investment and participation of the business community through the new Leeds Business Crime Reduction Partnership.
Business Crime Reduction Partnerships in the UK are established models of collaboration to reduce business crime, and anti-social behaviour, with many partnerships led by the Business Improvement District, which has only one objective: to see improvement and work for the good of all.
In Leeds, the message that we are sending out to those wishing to come to the city centre for all the wrong reasons is simple, “watch out” the city centre has come together and is stepping up its game significantly. With LeedsBID, businesses, police and council coming together, there is a new momentum in Leeds to create a safer experience for everyone.
So, Welcome to Leeds!
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