Thames Valley Police Commissioner says Slough is still 'very safe town' despite councillor concerns

The Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner said Slough ‘is still a very safe town’ despite councillors raising concerns over it being branded the ‘most dangerous major town in Berkshire’.

Matthew Barber joined Thames Valley Police officers to give members of the corporate improvement scrutiny committee in Slough an update on the force’s initiatives and the key issues affecting the town during a meeting at Observatory House on Tuesday.

During the discussion, Cllr Harjinder S Gahir (Lab, Wexham Court) read out statements he had found online concerning the danger levels in the town and questioned how the force could persuade people to stay in Slough, while reading these.

Cllr Gahir said: “I just got a quote from Google [on] crime and safety in Slough – ‘Slough is the most dangerous major town in Berkshire and is the third most dangerous overall out of Berkshire’.”

Reading more statistics, he added: “The overall crime rate in Slough in [2023] was 121 crimes per thousand.”

“What do you want to say for this and persuade people to stay in Slough, while they read this?”

Mr Barber responded: “I think we need to look at the overall levels, certainly of violent crime across the across the force.

“Of course, within any area somewhere will be better, somewhere will be worse.

“I don’t think we can say objectively that Slough is a dreadful place to be.

“I think Slough is a great town and I think the policing in Slough is very good.

“There are certainly challenges, we touched on many of them today.

“We’ve also talked about some of the areas where crime, including violent crime, is going down.

“You’re talking about Berkshire, which is a county which has incredibly low levels of violent crime overall.

“So being at the top of a low list, Slough is still a very safe town.

“If you look at national levels of violent crime then Slough still remains to be a safe place to be, as does the rest of Thames Valley.

“Yes of course, we want to continue to drive down violent crime in Slough, and you'll have heard a lot of the work that’s being done.”

But Cllr Gahir said that as a taxi driver who spends lots of time out-and-about in Slough, he sees the police presence but spoke of residents’ concerns over crime in the streets.

Mr Barber said Cllr Gahir was ‘absolutely right’ about the public confidence message but said that suggestions of Slough being a ‘dangerous and bad place to be’ would only go ‘further to damaging public confidence’.

“But I’m not sitting here saying I think that Slough is a terribly dangerous place [to be].

“The statistics are that violent crime is coming down. So, knife crime is falling in Slough, that is really important.

“I absolutely get how serious it is, but we also need to keep that perspective. I think the focus that you’ve heard from the police tonight about where they’re putting their resources is absolutely right.

“Would I pretend that solves all the problems of Slough – no of course not, but I think to have anybody leaving the room suggesting that Slough is a

dangerous and bad place to be will only go further to damaging public confidence.

“I think we need to be honest with people about where the risks are, but also be positive about the works being done jointly with the council and the police.”