Find out what we heard about safety in our city!
These facts were sourced from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
What is safety in Shellharbour all about?
We all know the people of Shellharbour value safety! We want to feel safe in our homes, in our neighbourhoods and in our city. But what does that look like and how can we achieve it?
When we talk about safety in Shellharbour on this page we are referring to crime prevention and the community's perception and fear of crime.
Our Shellharbour Safety Strategy aims to improve the proportion of people who feel and are safe within Shellharbour while increasing the importance of safety in physical planning for Shellharbour City now and in the future.
While your feedback will help us plan for the future, there are a few things we are already doing, such as:
- Having a Community Safety Officer.
- Community pop up's with police and council representatives to talk about safety.
- Ensuring what we build and own is safer by design.
- Encouraging community safety through connection with Good Neighbour Awards.
- Assisting with and promoting worthwhile campaigns like graff off and graffiti removal day.
Research shows that a significant way to help people feel safe is by knowing their neighbourhood! So we've included some facts above to help you feel safer. Make sure you take a read, or find more detailed information in the tabs below.
Share Your Feedback
Tell us where you feel safe
Questions and Answers
We are committed to providing safe spaces for our community!
The aim is to improve the proportion of people who feel and are safe within Shellharbour. We do this in various ways:
- Through targeted crime projects
- Partnerships
- Community education
- Awareness programs
Shellharbour’s Community Safety Officer aims to reduce crime and help people feel safe and connected in the City. Some of the ways the Community Safety Officer does this is by:
- Assessment of development applications, public spaces and hot spot locations to make them safer by design.
- Promote community safety and crime prevention strategies within Shellharbour City.
- Represent Council in partnerships with local, State and Federal networks to collaborate on crime prevention initiatives.
- Implement place-based projects that increase the safety of the community in public spaces.
- Develop plans (like this one), policies and practices in response to crime prevention and community safety issues.
- Monitor local crime statistics and consult with NSW Police on current safety issues.
- Coordinating the annual Good Neighbour Awards.
Community Safety pop-up meetings are monthly meetings held all across the City. They provide a space for residents to come and chat with Police and Council officers about community safety concerns. It also helps people get to know the officers in their neighbourhood.
We are responsible for removing graffiti from council owned property, you can report that here. To keep our neighbourhoods feeling safe we try to avoid or remove graffiti as regularly as we can.
Graffiti removal from private property is the responsibility of the property owner. To help with this, we hold an annual "Graffiti Removal Day" which targets graffiti hot spots not owned by council.
We also support Police with their GraffOff program which runs monthly, targeting private fences and laneways.
Shellharbour’s annual Good Neighbour Awards celebrate the people in our city that help make a community that is a welcoming, kind and supportive place to live.
Nominating someone is the perfect way to say thanks for being a great neighbour!
And go in the draw to win great prizes.
Crime Prevention through Environmental Design often referred to as CPTED, is a crime prevention tool that identifies the risk of crime a design presents.
It aims to plan the structure of buildings and places to reduce opportunities for crime.
CPTED focuses on "Safer by Design" principles which include:
- Surveillance
- Landscape design
- Territorial reinforcement
- Access control
- Environmental maintenance
- Space management
