Haven Of Peace, Or Haven For Crime?

We were disturbed and sorry to hear about the attack last Friday night on a man in Eastwood Road, Rayleigh.

We hope the victim makes a full and speedy recovery.

We’re not aware of this attack being connected with any particular premises in Rayleigh.

This is the kind of incident that makes you wonder just how much ‘nasty’ crime there is around Rayleigh compared to other towns of a similar size.? So we have added up the figures of all the reported burglaries, robberies, vehicle crimes, violent crimes, public disorder and weapon crimes. We’ve done this for May, June and July this year, and the figures include all these crimes within a mile of each ‘town centre’.

Here’s the results:

South Woodham Ferrers? ?? 76
Thundersley???????????????????????? 80
Benfleet????????????????????????????? 102
RAYLEIGH ????????????????????? ? ? 105
Wickford???????????????????????????? 140
Canvey??????????????????????????????? 144
Hadleigh???????????????????????????? 144
Leigh-On-Sea???????????????????? 205
Pitsea????????????????????????????????? 285
Grays????????????????????????????????? 287

As you can see, Rayleigh comes out pretty well. Though smaller towns and villages have lower figures (Hockley 45, Rochford 89). At the other extreme, Southend town centre had a score of 884. Of course , these figures are only a very rough guide – for example, about one-third of the Leigh-on-Sea area is underwater, some of the?crimes within 1 mile of Rayleigh actually happened in Thundersley.

We know that some residents are concerned that the changing face of Rayleigh High Street may bring more night-time problems. Councillors need to think about this – though the cabinet structure on the District Council makes it harder for us to discuss these issues face-to-face.

If you believe that any establishment in the town centre is breaching its license conditions, you can always make a complaint to the District Council. But it seems that very few people do….