New police and council powers to tackle young people wearing balaclavas to intimidate the public will come into force in Nottingham city centre from next week. Nottinghamshire Police say the measures, part of a Public Spaces Protection Order, will let officers require people to remove face coverings where identity is being concealed to commit crime or anti-social behaviour, and form part of a wider effort to make the city safer after it was ranked the "seventh most unsafe place in the country".

Police recorded more than 180 city centre incidents involving face coverings or balaclavas between June 2025 and June 2026, and the order follows the July 2024 murder of Jack Edwards, 24, by two balaclava-wearing teenagers at a Nottingham skate park. Breaches of the order, which starts on Tuesday, can bring £70 on-the-spot fines, confiscation of the item, or referral to a community-work justice programme, with repeat offenders facing a Criminal Behaviour Order that could ban them from the city centre indefinitely; officials stress it is not a blanket ban, with exemptions for religious, health, medical or work reasons, and the move followed a consultation in which over 90% of more than 2,200 respondents backed action.