Safer Kensington and Chelsea Community safety plan

Overview

The council made a new Safer Kensington and Chelsea Community Safety Plan for 2026 to 2030. This allowed us to focus on residents lived experiences when setting the new community safety priorities.

The Community Safety Partnership brings together organisations that help keep our borough safe. This includes the council, police, health services and voluntary groups. From the start, the group wanted everyone to be included in deciding the plan’s priorities. They recognised that community safety works best when it's created with residents, not for them.

How we engaged residents

Building on the council’s wider public participation commitments, the Community Safety Services team designed an engagement process to reach a broad mix of residents across the borough.

We invited residents to explore two simple but powerful questions:

• which crime and disorder issues affect you the most
• how do you think the Partnership should respond?

To hear from a wide range of people, we held sessions in different community settings. These included:

•  the Citizens’ Panel
• the Prevent Advisory Group,
• the Safer Neighbourhood Board
• ward panel meetings
• targeted conversations with disabled residents, older people, and young people with SEND

This helped us understand the community safety concerns across the borough. It also ensured we heard the perspectives of groups who experience safety in a different way.

What residents said

An online consultation received 228 responses. This gave us a clear borough-wide picture that reflected local conversations. 

Residents identified the following as the most urgent issues:

• antisocial behaviour
• drug-related concerns
• youth violence
• violence against women and girls
• hate crime
• theft

These findings matched the results of the annual Citizens’ Panel Community Safety survey. This helped us check where communities wanted action and improvement.

What we learned

We used residents' views, professional expertise, local data and national priorities to shape the new Community Safety Plan. This gave the Board a clear set of priorities that reflect the concerns of people who live, work and study in the borough.

From this work, we learned that:

• residents want us to keep focusing on antisocial behaviour, youth violence and exploitation, violence against women and girls and hate crime
• serious crimes like burglary, robbery and car theft remain key concerns
• drug dealing and drug use are major issues that cut across many themes
• involving residents helps build trust and improve transparency
• decisions are stronger when they reflect real community experience
• partnering with residents leads to better and more relevant council priorities for making our borough safer