A multi-agency group has been launched to help women and girls feel safer in North Herts.

Consisting of North Herts Police, North Herts Council, Herts Fire and Rescue Service and local housing association, settle, the new group will be utilising the Government’s latest online tool StreetSafe, which allows people to flag locations where they feel unsafe, in the areas where they live or work.

These locations will be reviewed by the group and visited to see what measures can be taken to make these areas feel safer.

Hosted on the national policing website police.uk and aimed primarily at women and girls, StreetSafe enables members of the public to anonymously drop a pin onto a map and describe any factors that cause them to feel unsafe.

Neighbourhood Inspector for North Herts, James Lant, said: “By working together and using a multi-agency approach we hope to be able to tackle the concerns raised by our local communities.

“StreetSafe will provide us with information about the places that women and girls feel unsafe, and this can be used alongside other data we hold, to shape our policing strategy and the changes necessary to make women and girls feel safer.

“Input from our local communities is vital and the information from StreetSafe will be used as part of our ongoing work to tackle violence against women and girls in all forms, and we hope the data provided will enrich our understanding of our communities’ concerns.”

Jeanette Thompson, legal and community service director at North Herts Council, added: “We are pleased to join this multi-agency group to address those places where people, especially women and girls, might feel less safe.

“StreetSafe has not been designed to report crime, but we hope more women and girls will come forward and report crimes like sexual harassment through existing channels."

Last month, the Comet launched a campaign to raise awareness and help tackle the issues that cause women and girls to feel unsafe.

This followed a survey launched across the Comet and its sister titles, where respondents cited lack of street lighting as one of the main reasons they felt unsafe in our areas.

To log a location, go to www.police.uk/pu/notices/streetsafe.