A Stoke-on-Trent residents association has been awarded £3,000 from the Police and Crime Commissioner’s People Power Fund to help prevent anti-social behaviour during the school holidays.
Pittshill and Great Chell Residents Association has been awarded funding which has gone to The New Horizons Sports and Leisure Centre so they can offer a range of activities at their sports hall and swimming pool.
The funding will mean that young people have somewhere to go instead of being on the streets and causing anti-social behaviour.
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.
“Projects like New Horizons Sports and Leisure Centre are great for strengthening families, giving young people somewhere to go and giving people a chance to keep active.
“It is important to engage with young people which means we can intervene early to tackle the problem of anti-social behaviour.”
Joan Taylor, Secretary for Pittshill and Great Chell Residents Association said: “We deeply appreciate the funding we’ve been able to get from the Police and Crime Commissioner, to help us carry forward the work being done at the New Horizons Sports and Leisure Centre and helping us to keep anti-social behaviour off the streets.”
The window for the next round of applications for People Power Funding opens 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.
