Retailers call for CCTV grants as shoplifting rises 24% year on year
Posted on in Business News
Independent retailers are calling on the government to offer security grants so that stores can be better equipped to deal with shoplifting, which has risen by a quarter in England and Wales in the year to March 2023, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.
Speaking to Convenience Store magazine, the national president of the Federation of Independent Retailers (the Fed) Muntazir Dipoti said: “Shop theft is not victimless. It blights the lives of independent retailers on a daily basis and has significant implications for a store’s viability.”
Mr Dipoti, who owns Todmorden News in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, added that as many retailers failed to report shop theft because of poor police responses, the scale of the problem could be much worse.
“Retailers are disillusioned by the lack of police action when crimes are committed so they do not report them. It is, therefore, possible that the number of cases of shop theft over this period could be even higher.”
He said: “Tackling shop theft has to be given the energy and priority it deserves from the police and the justice system and independent retailers should be given financial support so they can invest in better-quality CCTV to protect them, their staff and their businesses.”
The Fed’s decision to push the government for grants to improve their security systems was taken at its Annual Conference in June where delegates spoke of the need for quality CCTV images for police to successfully gain prosecutions. However, they warned that good quality systems were expensive to buy.
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