Residents in a Cheshire town are less worried about crime than they were 25 years ago and are now more concerned by the impact of potholes, failing infrastructure and unsafe parking on their daily lives, a new study led by Keele University has found.

People living in Macclesfield took part in a similar study in the 1990s which investigated how residents and those in authority talked and acted about crime in the town. The researchers returned to the town to find out what it means to feel and be safe in the town in the 21st century.

The new research found crime, such as robbery and burglary, has become less of a concern for people, who are now more focused on the care and repair of the local area – such as the conditions of roads, pavements and the state and future prospects of the town centre. Residents also expressed a high level of concern about cars and traffic, including issues with speeding, poor parking, and driver behaviour near school gates. 

Dr Evi Girling, a senior research fellow in criminology at Keele who led the study alongside colleagues from the Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh and University College London, said: "In the 1990s, people in Macclesfield expressed a wide range of concerns, some of which reflected problems that were high on the public agenda nationally at that time. These included worries about burglary, car theft, and drugs and anti-social behaviour, especially around licensed premises and about groups of young people in public spaces.

"Our new study shows that those worries have not gone away, but they are today less prominent in what people tell us about what it is like to live in and feel safe in this town. For most of our participants, crime was not at the forefront of their accounts of concerns about the town and their ability to imagine a secure future there."

The new study revealed people value living in Macclesfield, its heritage, connectivity to other urban centres and its proximity to beautiful countryside and they considered the town a relatively safe place to live in and to raise their families.

Professor Ian Loader, from the University of Oxford, said: "Local place-talk in the 2020s is not first and foremost talk about crime – a striking change from what we found in the 1990s. People's attention nowadays seems more focused on a range of harms that we might broadly term 'environmental'. Acts of care and repair of the physical and natural environment are a prominent feature of civic and everyday life in the town."

The researchers used a range of methods to investigate the experience and perceptions of safety and security among people living and working in town between 2019 and 2023. The team conducted two local surveys, interviews with local people and agencies, and observation of local groups and spaces to address these questions.

They say their findings reveal a need - and demand - for local agencies to create and sustain forms of active and inclusive dialogue with and between local people about how in the future the town can flourish.

The project, Place, Crime and Insecurity in Everyday Life, was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The project report is available online here.