North Yorkshire is to receive an additional £999,519.13 from the Home Office Safer Streets Fund.
Th funding will be used for two schemes, preventing neighbourhood crime and addressing violence against women and girls.
Up to £689,607.35 will be used to prevent neighbourhood crime with an extension of the Protect Your Home scheme
The scheme over the past few years has already improved security at hundreds of homes and farms in rural areas of Selby, Harrogate, York and Craven.
This latest round of funding will be used to prevent burglary and protect individuals and families in and around Scarborough and York.
Up to 500 homes in the Scarborough Castle Ward; York Inner, Clifton, Westfield and Guildhall Wards will be eligible for security upgrades. Eligible residents will receive a registration pack through the post towards the end of the year.
Security upgrades will include video door bells, new locks for vulnerable doors, windows, garages and sheds.
Funding will also support farm owners In North Yorkshire to feel safe by protecting up to 2,000 farm vehicles from theft through marking of parts with exceptionally durable tamper resistant labels contained within a ‘vehicle kit.’
Up to £309,911.78 will be used to improve safety for women and girls across York and North Yorkshire.
Project Vigilant
This North Yorkshire Police will increase police presence in Scarborough in the night-time economy with the aim of identifying and disrupting potential offences against women and girls. The project will be publicised to promote the actions that North Yorkshire Police are taking to reduce Violence Against Women and Girls in the night-time economy – to reassure the public that measures are being taken to keep women and girls safe, and to target potential predatory sexual offenders, to let them know that an active police response to this offending is being taken.
Vulnerability & Spiking Awareness Training
A training package will be delivered to staff who work in the night-time economy in Harrogate to enable them to have a good understanding of the risks posed to women and girls within the context of sexual violence, spiking and other gender-based attacks. The training will support organisations who work in the night-time economy to incorporate Safer Streets principles into their working practices, policies, and procedures, with the aim of improving feelings of safety for women and girls during later hours and improving responses to violence against women and girls.
All About Respect
An educational package designed to raise awareness of gender-based violence amongst young people. The educational package will raise awareness of problematic behaviours and will deliver Bystander Training. This initiative will also seek to gather the views of young people on Violence Against Women and Girls, who will be encouraged to participate via creative forms of engagement.
Women’s Whole System Approach
The aim of this initiative is to develop a gender-specific, trauma-informed Whole System Approach across York and North Yorkshire to support women who may have multiple unmet needs, those who have experienced or are at risk of violence and those who may be involved or are at risk of involvement with the Criminal Justice System. A particular focus will be supporting women who may be at risk of hidden harm. As part of the Whole System Approach, a converted campervan will be deployed which will take services out to women, particularly in rural and isolated areas of the County.
Video doorbells
Video doorbells will be provided to repeat victims of domestic abuse and / or stalking along with a 1-year subscription for video storage. North Yorkshire Police Domestic Abuse Officers and the specialist stalking team will work with IDAS, our commissioned domestic abuse support services provider and other support services to identify victims of post-separation abuse or stalking who may benefit from these doorbells to capture any evidence of these offences.
Commissioner Zoë Metcalfe, Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for York and North Yorkshire said:
I am really delighted that we have once again been successful in securing additional national funding to keep people of York and North Yorkshire safe, and feeling safe.
Preventing burglary, tackling rural crime and improving safety for women and girls are priority areas within my Police and Crime Plan and Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy and these initiatives will have a real, tangible impact on how safe people feel both in and outside their homes.
The Protect Your Home scheme has been a tremendous success in rural areas and I am pleased that we now have funds to implement it in Scarborough, surrounding areas, and York.
This is the fifth time my Office has secured additional Home Office funding to support residents across North Yorkshire and York to be safe and feel safe and I am confident that what these two schemes will deliver will make a huge difference to individuals, families and communities.
