In August 2024 violent disorder erupted outside a hotel in Manvers being used to house asylum seekers, as part of a wave of unrest across the UK which broke out following the fatal stabbings of three young girls in Southport.
Speaking at an Overview and Scrutiny Management Board meeting on Tuesday, Read said: “It feels like there is a national, perhaps an international, trend that is driving people apart, which I find quite very concerning frankly.
“We also live at a time where, as you know, there are particularly far right influencers who are trying to cause division and cause concern.
“Some of that is expressed through the flags on lamp-posts in communities across the borough. That is really not the only thing that’s going on there, but some of that is about people seeking to provoke.”
He said, through projects like Step Up, Beat Hate he hoped to “direct the resources that we have… to intervene in the places where there is a place where we can do that”.
The project offers one-to-one support for people involved in, or at risk of, perpetrating hate crime, as well as hate crime awareness sessions for youth groups across the borough.
In the first two quarters of 2025, 362 children and young people attended nine group sessions, and 57 one-to-one sessions were completed.
The council has set a target of reaching 600 young people through group sessions and delivering at least 55 individual interventions by the end of the year.
The council said progress had also been made over the past six months on improving community safety through its Street Safe Team.
The team includes five officers tasked with patrolling the town centre to reassure the public and deter anti-social behaviour.
It said the team would soon be expanding its work to include areas such as Maltby, Wath, Dinnington and Swinton.