Heart of the City welcomes police boost & anticipates ongoing work

Heart of the City, Auckland’s city centre business association, welcomes today’s announcement to boost the police presence in the city centre and anticipates work to continue on a longer term solution.   CEO Viv Beck says “an additional 20 officers will certainly help to keep up the momentum on reducing crime and we anticipate ongoing work to ensure sufficient resource for a 24/7 international city.”

“After more than three years of intense lobbying, we are very pleased the city centre is now high on the agenda for increased resources – both from police and other agencies.   Reported crime is trending downwards* and while there is still a way to go, we are optimistic that more front-line police starting from 1 July will bring a further reduction and complement local safety initiatives in place.  And, with more than a million people here every week and the City Rail Link coming closer, we anticipate that 20 additional front-line police will be further supplemented as soon as possible.”

Beck says that “It is good to see that there is a follow-through on the commitment to have more police on the beat here.  The timing is important, with plenty on over the coming months and more than 11,000 participants about to arrive for the World Choir Games.”

As well as extra police on the beat, there remains a desire by many in the community to see the return of a Downtown police station.

Of this Beck says, “We’d like to see a Downtown police station of sorts come to fruition as soon as possible to further increase the visibility of police.”

-ENDS-