The Queenstown Lakes District Council is hosting an innovative workshop on crime prevention through environmental design, next week. The Council is one of only two Council's in New Zealand to import the information courtesy of the New South Wales police.

"We are extremely grateful to NSW chief inspector Phil McCamley, who has agreed to run the four-day workshop. Mr McCamley is not only highly respected internationally in the area of crime prevention he is also an accomplished researcher, university lecturer and design safety practitioner," workshop spokeswoman Rezi Gousmett said.

The concept to run the workshop, which will be attended by police, landscape designers, planners, architects and Council staff from the Queenstown Lakes District and throughout New Zealand, was born out of a report commissioned in 2002 to review street lighting and safety issues.

"We realised that not only was the work being undertaken in New South Wales extremely ground breaking it was also entirely relevant to our community and others in New Zealand," Mrs Gousmett said.

The workshop had run previously in Auckland, receiving high praise from those in attendance.

"We have attempted to get as many relevant people in our district to attend as possible, with the Council offering to subsidise several placements. We then cast the remaining spaces nationally and filled those spots in no time," Mrs Gousmett said.

The course content includes:

• Criminology and crime prevention,
• Historical applications of crime prevention through environmental design,
• Identifying crime risk in architectural plans and drawings,
• Lighting, fear and crime,
• Crime risk management,
• Councils, planning and design safety.

In addition, the Council was investigating the establishment of a safer streets committee to progress the issues raised by the workshop.

ENDS

For further information please contact Rezi Gousmett 027 229 6012

By: Kiri