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Posted: Sat 20th Dec 2025
North Wales’ police chief says crime is down in the region.
At a North Wales Police and Crime Panel meeting on Monday (15 December), North Wales Police Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman updated the panel with progress, saying crime levels had dropped.
In her address at Conwy County Council’s Coed Pella HQ, she said 999 call responses had improved and highlighted where crime had fallen.
The Chief Constable also said she had improved the culture at North Wales Police, which had resulted in the force being included in the top five police forces in England and Wales in a wellbeing survey.
“Our performance has continued to develop. We continue to see reductions in crime. This year we have reduced crime by 1.8%, on top of reductions every year since I’ve been here,” she said.
“We know those are accurate because HMIC [His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services] inspected us, and we saw that we had excellent standards in terms of crime and recording so we know that’s an accurate reflection of true reductions.
“More importantly we’ve seen reductions in the areas that communities really care about, violent crime with injury, stalking and harassment, residential burglary, theft, criminal damage, just to name a few.”
She added: “Our work in terms of violence against women and girls has also seen a reduction of nearly 3% in terms of reported crime.”
The Chief Constable said she had put significant investment into staffing in police control centres for public contact, which had resulted in 90% of 999 calls being answered in two seconds or less.
During the update, Ms Blakeman also highlighted road safety work and hinted that a major streaming service had “commissioned” a North Wales TV programme.
According to Ms Blakeman, Netflix are now involved in the Olivia’s Story campaign – a powerful film raising awareness at schools about of road safety.
The film was released by the family of Ruthin teenager Olivia Alkir, who was tragically killed in a crash involving two young drivers in June 2019 at Efenechtyd, Denbighshire.
“I also know that the panel have been very concerned about road safety,” said Ms Blakeman.
“I have a whole suite of measures that we are currently engaged in: our Apex being the design signage that we are putting out of the roads around our motorcycle users so that they are able to follow a safe track on a bend; Olivia’s Story, that I know has had some real personal investment, with (a) Netflix commissioned series, which could highlight that preventative work; our fitness-to-drive scheme, where we are working in partnership with North Wales Mobility and Driving Assessment Service, which supports motorists over the age of 70 to drive more safely; our pedestrian casualties working group because we’ve seen a number of fatalities that have been work related vehicles just recently.”
She added that police were hitting “every avenue” to reduce road casualties.
By Richard Evans – BBC Local Democracy Reporter
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