A Stoke-on-Trent Residents Association has been awarded £3,000 from the Police and Crime Commissioner’s People Power Fund to help cut anti-social behaviour locally.
Queensland Residents Association was awarded funds to run targeted activities in Tunstall Park with Engage Communities, to encourage young people to participate in sports and to reduce local anti-social behaviour (ASB).
As part of his commitment to local communities, the Commissioner is providing £500,000 in 2015/16 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 local areas throughout Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.
Mr Ellis said: “It is really great to not only see young people engaging in sports but to see good partnership work between local residents, the police and other partners.
“I’m glad the feedback from the activities has been positive and the young people are attending from the area.
“It is important to work with young people to intervene early to tackle the causes of ASB and these activities are exactly the kind of thing I want to achieve from the fund.”
Richard French, Chairman of Queensland Residents Association, said: “We applied for funding to help the youth who come to the park to reduce ASB in the area. There are high levels of ASB that are being dealt with by the police and other agencies as we have great partnership work.
“We’ve had a lot of positive feedback from the activities which we wouldn’t be able to provide if we didn’t receive the money from the Police and Crime Commissioner which we are thankful for.”
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.
