A Cannock boxing club has been awarded £3,000 from the Police and Crime Commissioner’s People Power Fund to help prevent anti-social behaviour.
Rugeley Police and Community Boxing Club has been given the funding so they can purchase new boxing equipment so coaches and boxers can train in a safe environment.
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 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.
“After visiting the boxing club it was great to see so many young people getting involved and the coaches work very hard to provide an environment where young people can go to keep active and off the streets.
“It is important to engage with young people which mean we can intervene early to tackle the problem of anti-social behaviour.”
Ian Lear, coach at Rugeley Police and Community Boxing Club, said: “The money we received from the People Power Fund has helped the club to buy new equipment. We have had two new punch bags, four wall punch bags, skipping ropes and new gloves for the kids.
“Some of the money is going towards a new boxing ring, which we hope to have set up by the end of March. In the future we hope to extend the lease on the land of the club, as we only own the building, so we can extend the gym so more people can train.
“Everyone from the club would like to thank Matthew Ellis for the grant.”
The window for the next round of applications for People Power Funding opened on Sunday 1 March and runs until Tuesday 14 April.
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.
