Alley-gates in urban South Wales: Six years down the road

The introduction of crime prevention through environmental design initiatives such as alley-gating is now widespread across the United Kingdom. For practitioners and policymakers alike, erecting steel gates at entrances to alleys is seen as a major initiative for reducing domestic burglary and tackling a range of anti-social behaviours. In particular, in the current climate of economic austerity, such apparent cost-effective measures may seem more attractive to policymakers and planners alike, as they struggle to maintain public confidence in the criminal justice system and reduce levels of criminality. This article examines one such alley-gate initiative at Cadoxton, Barry, South Wales, based on a series of annual data collections and considers the long-term impact on recorded burglary statistics and local community perceptions of the effectiveness of the gates as well as considering any impact on long-term public support for such interventions.