Councillor Simon Renwick – Cabinet Member at Fylde Borough Council - expressed deep concern this week about new, local knife crime statistics published by the Government, and called for action to tackle the growing menace.

The official figures published by the Home Office show that across Lancashire, there were 361 serious offences last year involving knives. 18% of all wounding, grievous bodily harm or robberies were committed with a knife in Lancashire. Nationally, the figure is 19%.


Conservatives are calling for a series of urgent measures to reduce knife crime, which include:

· Anyone convicted of carrying a knife should expect to receive a custodial sentence. Currently, the Government is planning to allow offenders carrying a knife to be let off with a fine in some circumstances.

· Making it easier for police officers to stop suspects and search them for knifes and other weapons, and increasing use of mobile knife scanners on the streets and on public transport (as already being successful trialled in London by Boris Johnson).

· Providing more custodial places for young offenders, and increasing support for drugs and education programmes, and tackling the causes of knife crime such as family breakdown, lack of school discipline and welfare dependency.



Councillor Renwick commented: "I am very concerned about these new figures showing that the menace of knife crime on our streets. This is a shocking indictment of Labour's failure to tackle crime and its causes.

"Our police have been tied up in so much red tape that they can only spend 14 per cent of their time on the beat fighting crime. At the same time our unprotected borders have allowed too many weapons and hard drugs to flow into our country. Labour have also failed to address family breakdown which sets too many young people on a path of crime."