Burglars and anyone selling, buying or using drugs in the street are not keen on anyone walking or cycling through their preferred areas of operation.

Selling drugs also brings a need to commit violent crime both to extract payment from ‘customers’ and to see off anyone trying to take their ‘customers’, although victims would be a better term.

Cyclists and walkers make much better witnesses to street crime because you can see so much more actually on the street than in a car.

This is why people fearful of these crimes call for police walking the beat.

Low traffic neighbourhoods, typically with one end of the road shut off to cars so bikes and walkers are safer, immediately result in lower rates of street crime in the surrounding roads, especially crimes of violence.

In areas lucky enough to have a lot of these improvements there is the added bonus of it being difficult to make off at speed in a car if disturbed.

Could residents and councillors please take this into account in deciding whether Poole should welcome cyclists and walkers with improvements including better road crossings, wider pavements and safe cycle lanes.

Even if you don’t cycle or walk yourself, or benefit from the increase in property values, or business investment that follows these improvements, surely most want the streets to be safer from crime.

It is not about cars versus bikes and walkers, but about how people cycling and walking have so much to offer everyone.

Poole’s Living Streets group is part of a national political movement to bring streets to life by making them safe for everyone.

Susan Stockwell

Britannia Road, Poole