City centre businesses have praised a new online reporting system aimed at reducing the problems posed by antisocial behaviour.
The initiative, which was implemented by Go Forth Stirling following complaints from traders based in the city, was rolled out to local firms via a series of training sessions aimed at allowing businesses to become more connected in reporting incidents taking place.
The SentrySIS system, run by the Retailers Against Crime (RAC) group, sends out real-time alerts when thefts and other incidents are happening across the city and also allows business owners to report incidents to warn others and create evidence logs to help police.
Among the business owners who attended the training sessions was Grant Reid from Calluna, which has been based in Murray Place for the last five years.
Grant told the Observer: “The location of our shop is the main thing because Murray Place has always been a congregation point for people to hang out rather than go shopping.
“It is slightly detrimental to trade when you have a large group of people like that and so people avoid the area, which isn’t great for tourists coming here ahead of what will be a fairly decent tourist season.
“We used to have a lot of drunk people but thankfully that has died off now, it’s just a group of around 20 to 30 kids who are congregating around Murray Place on Friday and Saturday afternoons.
“They just don’t have a lot else to occupy their time but it’s just an intimidation factor, most of it is just kids doing what kids do and they are not bad people, although there is a minority of bad kids that maybe will shout abuse at people walking around.
“The great thing about the system is that it allows you to log any activity that is going on, if there are any thieves or gangs coming into the area because the 101 service is so hard to get through to.
“You can log that activity and see what else is going on in the high streets.”
That message was echoed by Lisa Davidson, who runs Tinkerbells Emporium gift shop in nearby Friars Street.
Lisa added: “I’ve heard from other businesses struggling with people loitering about rather than actual crime, I’ve been quite lucky in that I haven’t had many issues with theft in the shop.
“The new app has made a huge difference. The word is getting out there that businesses are all connected so you get real-time updates about anything that is going on and you can add your own experiences on there.
“It was brilliant because I was able to get the training and then share that with the neighbouring businesses to me, so it means that we don’t have to bog the police down with small incidents.
“It also means that people wanting to come into the city are seeing that businesses are all talking to each other and that maybe Stirling isn’t the place to go if you want to go shoplifting or commit crime like that.”
After launching the system, Go Forth Stirling project director Danielle McRorie-Smith said: “Like all city and town centres, Stirling has issues with youth crime which seems to have increased since the pandemic and lockdowns.
“We want to highlight the fact that businesses are not always reporting the issues they encounter which means police officers and youth teams don’t have the data they need to support the allocation of additional resources to tackle anti-social behaviour.
“So, we’re reminding our traders to make use of their access to the SentrySIS system and to actively contribute to it by logging any instances of ASB they encounter.
“It’s all part of the BID’s remit to help create a more welcoming city centre environment.”
