We've signed up to the Women's Night Safety Charter

Making sure you're safe while walking around Barking and Dagenham is vitally important to us and earlier this week we signed up to the Women’s Night Safety Charter.

We've joined 25 other London boroughs to sign up to the charter that aims to promote women’s safety, particularly during night-time hours.

Signing up to the charter means we must:

  • Nominate a champion in the organisation to actively promotes women’s night safety
  • Demonstrate to staff and residents that the organisation takes women’s safety at night seriously, for example through a communications campaign
  • Remind residents and staff that London is safe, but tell them what to do if they experience harassment when working, going out or travelling
  • Encourage reporting by victims and bystanders as part of the communications campaign
  • Train staff to ensure that all women who report are believed
  • Train staff to ensure that all reports are recorded and responded to
  • Design public spaces and workplaces to make them safer for women at night

    Since the Women's Safety survey, we have not only listened to what you have told us, we have acted on it and signing up to the charter is just one of the things implemented alongside:
  1. Investing in a new Community Safety Enforcement Team
  2. Increasing enforcement patrols in antisocial behaviour hotspots
  3. Improving lighting in areas highlighted by residents
  4. Overhauling the council’s CCTV system and cameras
  5. Supporting the launch of a brand-new Barking Town Centre police team.


We will be working closely with local businesses to encourage them to sign up to the charter to send a clear message that they will not tolerate intimidating behaviour, violence or sexual harassment at their venues.

To find out what else we're doing to improve safety in the borough and to hear from officers in our enforcement team, please head to www.lbbd.gov.uk/saferbd