An East Staffordshire angling project that engages young people through fishing has netted a People Power Fund grant from Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Ellis.
The Fishing In Safe Hands’ FISH 2013 group has been awarded the £500 grant for its weekly sessions with youngsters in Needwood, near Burton.
As part of his commitment to local communities, the Commissioner is providing £500,000 in 2014/15 through the People Power Fund in the form of grants of between £100 and £3,000.
The fund is supporting locally-driven community safety activities in communities throughout Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.
Mr Ellis said: “I have significantly increased the funding that local areas in Staffordshire have to make their communities safer.
“The Commissioner’s People Power Fund puts half a million pounds back into local communities and is easy and simple to apply for.
“Projects like Fishing In Safe Hands are engaging local young people who may not be involved in mainstream sport and teaching them important skills.”
John Anderson, Fishing In Safe Hands’ Head Coach, said: “FISH 2013 is a community group set up to take young people into the countryside and allow them to experience the sport of angling.
“We work closely with local schools and other organisations to ensure we offer our club benefits to as wide an audience as possible and we have been directly involved in helping young people to get their lives firmly back on track.
“We rely totally on funding from grants and sponsorship. The grant from the Commissioner’s People Power Fund will ensure we can offer our help and services into the future.”
The window for the next round of applications for People Power Funding opens on Friday 1 August and runs until Sunday 14 September.
These could range from Good Neighbour Schemes to provide reassurance in a community, the introduction of a local club or activity for young people, through to the installation of security measures at a local community venue used by residents.
People Power applications need to be sponsored by the group’s local Neighbourhood Police Officer or Police Community Support Officer. More details, including application forms and an animated video about the fund, are available now at www.staffordshire-pcc.gov.uk/fund
The People Power Fund is one part of £2.5 million of Commissioner’s Community Funding for 2014/15. The Commissioner’s Locality Deal Fund has allocated money to local areas through working in partnership with local district and borough councils. Meanwhile, the Commissioner’s Proceeds of Crime Fund is seeing 100 per cent of funding received by Staffordshire Police going back into local communities, through grants of between £3,000 and £15,000. It is made up of money seized from criminals as Staffordshire Police continue to strip offenders of their assets.
Successful projects in all three funding streams will deliver what’s important to local people based on the four priorities set out in the Commissioner’s Safer, Fairer, United Communities Strategy – tackling the root causes of crime through early intervention, supporting victims and witnesses better, reducing reoffending and increasing public confidence.
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