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Safer Barnsley Partnership

The partnership includes statutory and non-statutory organisations that work together to keep our communities safe. We meet six times a year and focus on making Barnsley a safe place for everyone to live, work, study and visit.

We deliver the priorities in our partnership plan by working together to respond to local and national challenges. We'll continue to work together to provide a safe community for Barnsley’s residents, businesses and visitors.

Read the full 2025 Safer Barnsley Partnership Plan.

About the Safer Barnsley Partnership

The Safer Barnsley Partnership is Barnsley’s statutory community safety partnership. We co-ordinate how Barnsley tackles crime and disorder, protects vulnerable people, and reduces re-offending.

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and legislation after places statutory duties on community safety partnerships to:

  • produce an annual Joint Strategic Intelligence Assessment (JSIA)
  • prepare and deliver a partnership plan
  • establish an information sharing agreement
  • oversee domestic homicide reviews and reviews of drug and alcohol related deaths

No single agency can deal with community safety and crime on its own. Our approach is to work together to tackle crime and disorder. We remain committed to:

  • provide efficient and effective services across the borough
  • prevent, intervene and enforce where appropriate to keep our communities safe
  • support residents to solve problems early and focus resources at the right place and time
  • engage with our communities to put our residents at the heart of everything we do

Our partnership commitments reflect local and regional priorities. We will align our work to the:

Partnership priorities

Our key commitments will be delivered through the partnership's five sub-groups. The list below details each sub-group's priorities. These inform their commitments, which can be found in the full plan.

  • Safe places (anti-social behaviour, environmental crime, neighbourhood crime)
  • Violence and organised crime (violence against women and girls, serious violence duty, organised crime and offender management)
  • Combatting drugs (drug supply, prevention and education, treatment and recovery)
  • Domestic abuse
  • Cohesive and resilient communities (hate crime, community tension, Prevent)

Cross-cutting commitments for all sub-groups to focus on are:

  • Re-offending and rehabilitation
  • Engagement and communication

The partnership also responds to further strategies, including:

Engagement with the community

Working together across the partnerships remains a vital aspect of our ambition. The Safer Barnsley Partnership is one part of a wider partnership that aims to make Barnsley a great place to live.

The Safer Barnsley Partnership will continue to undertake the broader campaigns of public consultation. This will be part of its Joint Strategic Intelligence Assessment process. This will create more chances to inform our priority setting work for the community. Our engagement with the community will be within the limitations of any restrictions that may exist to safeguard the public.

Our partners

Our Safer Barnsley Partnership includes a range of partners. It includes:

Key highlights

Love Where You Live

Barnsley Council’s Love Where You Live programme has relaunched, focusing on ward improvements, volunteering, and community pride - all aimed at creating safer, more welcoming neighbourhoods.

As part of this, targeted clean-ups are underway across over 120 streets, tackling environmental crime, anti-social behaviour, and local blight to help residents feel proud of where they live.

Base71 Youth Zone

The 2025 Joint Strategic Intelligence Assessment (JSIA) recommended that we provide a safe environment for youth inclusion to keep young people off the streets, and to work with the youth zone project.

Base71 Youth Zone opened in January 2026, where young people in Barnsley can connect, grow, socialise, and develop. This is the first youth zone in Yorkshire, staffed by skilled youth workers and offering a world-class space with over 20 activities every session for young people aged eight to 19 (or up to 25 for those with additional needs). From sports and fitness to creative arts, cooking, and employability workshops, there's something for everyone. It's a place where young people can find encouragement, guidance, and opportunities to unlock their potential.

Safe space bus

The Safer Neighbourhoods Service mobile CCTV unit doubles as a safe space for anyone who feels vulnerable and needs support in the town centre on Saturday evenings and during key dates and events, such as Barnsley Live. This has been a great success, supporting 966 people in various ways throughout 2025 since its launch in March 2025.

Operation Duxford

Operation Duxford is a large-scale enforcement and community engagement initiative aimed at tackling crime and safeguarding vulnerable residents across the borough.

One of the most successful operations to date took place in November 2025, with coordinated operations across Barnsley to tackle known criminal hotspots. This included:

  • arrests for serious offences including possession with intent to supply, theft, and assault
  • vehicle and drugs seizures, and cannabis plants recovered with ongoing investigations
  • community engagement through visits, school talks, and proactive patrols
  • council teams working alongside the police to protect vulnerable residents from exploitation and cuckooing
  • road safety enforcement addressing multiple traffic offences and prohibition notices

Partnership intelligence submissions

The South Yorkshire Police partnership intelligence submission process has been improved with an online portal. This makes it much easier for partners to share intelligence, and we've raised awareness of this through the Safer Barnsley Partnership network, increasing intelligence submissions.

The more intelligence generated, and the better quality of the information, helps to map activity and plan disruptions of organised crime groups and criminal activity in Barnsley.

Working together

Working together remains a vital part of our goals. Actions are taken across many partnerships and their sub-groups. Progress and key issues linked to community safety are reported into the Safer Barnsley Partnership Board.

The Safer Barnsley Partnership Board is one part of a wider partnership. They aim to make Barnsley the place of possibilities. The Safer Barnsley Partnership Board works with other key partnerships, such as the following:

This makes sure there's a joint approach to help communities solve problems early and to focus resources where and when needed. This arrangement is facilitated by the inter-partnership joint working protocol. This approach to community safety makes sure that the right help is given at the right time in the right place.

Case studies

Litter picking

Volunteers and residents were concerned about ongoing littering. It took place on a two mile stretch of road between Cudworth and Darfield. The aim was to clear litter and fly-tipping.

  • Road closures were needed. First aid support was booked over the period.
  • The North-East Area Team liaised with volunteers and other services. They gave out litter picking tools and safety wear. They set up and manned zones on the day.
  • Barnsley Community Build and neighbourhood services cleared back overgrown areas to make them safe. They collected purple bags of litter and removed fly-tipping.

Along with volunteers and residents, we saw adults, children, councillors, MPs, the North East Area Team, council staff and litter pickers from around the borough. The area council will be looking at steps to prevent the ongoing litter issue in the area.

  • 74 volunteers took part in the events.
  • Five tonnes of waste was removed.
  • 350 sacks of litter were filled.

Litter campaign - Dearne Area Council - Dearne North, Dearne South

We took into account the results from the area council's community listening event, and listened to elected members' concerns. The area team concluded that education was needed around littering and fly-tipping in the Dearne.

The aim was to educate the community and reduce the amount of litter in the area. We did this by:

  • involving children and young people with 'design a poster' sessions to encourage using a rubbish bin.
  • providing advice on community boards and to groups. These explain the rates of decomposition of rubbish.

Results:

  • There were 41 entries in the competition from children, young people and adults. All entries received a goody bag at the autumn fair.
  • Increased relationships with local schools, communities and voluntary groups.
  • Positive impact on mental health.
  • Positive feedback from parents.
  • Continued education around littering will help reduce environmental crime in the future.

Substance misuse

Domestic abuse

Multiple needs

Black History Month

E is 44 years old and has lived in Barnsley for 18 months. She helped with different activities throughout Black History Week in October 2021. This included students from the Educational Learning Support Hub (ELSH), the local community and network groups.