The scheme made common sense to me, and the people who live in the Edward Street flats got a patrol. Mr Hicks has been promised extra uniformed officers, which should bring the overall strength on day shifts to 20. But this will not make any difference to the way the city is policed. To a certain extent, he is a victim of Sheffield's success. Crime rates have declined since the early 1990s, and the most recent figures confirm it is one of the safest cities in the country.
Murders are infrequent.
What violent crime there is tends to be drug related. The police also have to deal with occasional shootings. Six weeks ago in Burngreave Road, three men jumped into the back of a car and shot a man in the passenger seat. The victim lost a lot of blood and suffered severe damage to his spleen, but survived. Incidents like that are few and far between.