£500,000 grant to provide improved CCTV and street lighting

Cheshire Police is set to receive £1.1million from the Government’s Safer Street Fund – the joint highest award for any area of the country in the latest round of grants – in aid of two projects in the county.

The first will ‘provide a training package of guardianship programmes for people involved in the town’s night-time economy’, as well as bring the safety improvements to central Warrington and create a ‘safer taxi scheme with a network of accredited drivers’.

Sessions run in the town’s schools and colleges will also aim to teach pupils about ‘harmful behaviour’ and ‘shift the focus away from victim blaming to accountability for perpetrators’.

Meanwhile, the second will involve a partnership between the force and the University of Chester across its campuses – including Warrington.

Staff will be trained to support victims of crime, with ‘behaviour change education’ for students.

Further CCTV and street lighting will also be installed at the university’s sites, with plans to ‘enhance’ its app to allow for crimes to be reported.

Cheshire police and crime commissioner John Dwyer said: “Tackling violence against women and girls is a key part of my police and crime plan, so I’m delighted that these two bids have been successful.

“If these schemes are successful, then I want to roll out similar programmes across the county so that every single person in Cheshire will benefit.

“The success of these bids, and our determination to do even more, I hope goes some way to reassuring women and girls of the work that Cheshire Police does to take their safety seriously.

“This comes following the concerns raised after the tragic murder of Sarah Everard and the sentencing of her killer.

“I was very clear that these bids needed to focus on changing perpetrator behaviour and educating people about why these crimes are abhorrent.

“These programmes will reinforce the message that it is never the victim’s fault and whilst we can take steps to prevent crimes that disproportionately affect women and girls, total responsibility lies with the people who commit them.”

PCC John Dwyer and chief constable Mark Roberts

Cheshire Police chief constable Mark Roberts added: “I’m delighted this funding has been secured to help support the constabulary with the ongoing work of making Cheshire an even safer place to live, work, study and visit.

“The safety of women and girls is rightly a national key priority and one which is fully supported across Cheshire.

“This funding will definitely help to make a difference.

“We will continue to listen and learn, working with survivors, the public and other police forces to continually improve the way we tackle violence against women and girls.

“We are consulting experts, practitioners and other agencies in this area to make sure our strategy is as strong as it can be and delivers the service that our communities deserve.”

Warrington Borough Council chief executive Steven Broomhead has also welcomed the funding.

He added: “The council is extremely pleased that Warrington will benefit from additional funding as part of the Government’s Safer Streets scheme.

“This will enable us to target some of the key issues that were recently highlighted in a safety of women and girls survey, in which we received very useful feedback from across the borough about improvements we can make.

“Over the coming months, we will be working very closely with the commissioner and other partners to make the best use of this additional funding, which will not only include improvements to areas such as street lighting and CCTV in the town centre – which were areas highlighted in our survey – but also look to influence cultural change through an education and training programme across our schools, colleges and university so that we can improve the safety of women and girls within our borough.”