2nd August- Jack Abbott on Ipswich's Town Centre

Every time I am out speaking to neighbours here in our town, the main issue that gets raised with me is our town centre.

Despite green shoots starting to appear over the past year, there are still several challenges that need to be addressed.

Over the course of the summer, I have been hosting a number of town hall-style events as part of my ‘Summer Series’, listening to residents’ feedback on how we can build a greater Ipswich together.

Last week, I hosted a town hall to discuss our town centre, and, next week, I am hosting a discussion on crime and policing here in Ipswich.

The feedback from the town hall was loud and clear. Our streets have to be safer; the criminals who ran amok under 14 years of Conservative government need to be dealt with; and anti-social behaviour has to be treated with the same seriousness as it is experienced.

It is not right that women and girls feel unsafe walking through town at night. It is not right that shop workers have to face retail crime. It is not right that people feel intimidated or unsafe in our town centre, local parks or neighbourhoods.

The previous Conservative government let all of the above spiral out of control, dismissing it as ‘low-level’ crime - just a minor inconvenience that we would simply have to get used to. They slashed funding for neighbourhood policing and community groups; we suffered.

That is why our Labour government is not only listening, but acting too. 

When I welcomed both the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, and the Police Minister, Diana Johnson to Ipswich, I took them shop to shop so I could impress upon them the support our town needs from the government.

People want to see bobbies back on the beat across our town. Labour’s Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee means that every area will have a named, contactable neighbourhood policing team to address local issues first-hand, and guarantees patrols in high streets and our town centre.

These are officers rooted in our community - working to tackle the root causes of crime and give people the help they need. I am fighting hard to ensure Suffolk gets our fair share of these new officers, and we are already recruiting an extra 26 for our county.

After my lobbying efforts, our Labour government also confirmed an uplift in Suffolk’s core policing budget of £5.5million, alongside other funding boosts to tackle things like violence against women and girls and knife crime.

We must also ensure that the police have the powers they need to tackle the issues that matter most. Our government is introducing new ‘Respect Orders’, to tackle persistent offenders in our town who otherwise would have been left to their own devices by the previous government.

I was also proud to support Labour’s legislation that creates a standalone offence of assaulting a retail worker, and new laws that protect emergency workers from violence too. This is underpinned by our crackdown on retail crime more generally, ending the Conservatives’ decriminalising of shoplifting under £200.

This isn’t just national initiative, either. Locally, important work is being done, too.

Our Labour-led Ipswich Borough Council has pioneered a new partnership with Ipswich Central to tackle street drinking, particularly in our town centre, and I know that local police are playing their part in enforcing the government’s crackdown on illegal work and dodgy businesses that plague too many high streets across Britain.

There is, of course, lots more to do, but, finally, Ipswich has an MP and a government that takes these issues as seriously as you do.

Over the course of the summer, we will be ramping up action to make our streets safer, with Ipswich one of the areas benefiting from the Safer Streets summer blitz that will see increased police patrols and local action.