West Yorkshire Mayor awards record amount of funding to innovative community safety projects

The Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, has awarded over £320,000 to community projects that are making the region safer.

At the Mayor’s Safer Communities Fund ceremony on Thursday (6 October), Mayor Brabin renewed her commitment to creating a safer West Yorkshire by granting a total of £326,032.84 to frontline community safety projects from the five districts.

The event saw 61 innovative projects, run by community groups, charities, and partners, receive grants of up to £6000.

This brings the total amount of funding provided to community safety projects by the Mayor to over £530,000. This is in addition to the £3.8 million already delivered by the scheme to 752 projects since 2014.

Each of these projects address at least one of the cross-cutting themes or priorities within the Mayor’s Police and Crime Plan, including keeping women and girls safe, diversity, equality, and inclusion, and early intervention and prevention.

Speaking at the event, Mayor Brabin said:

“The safety of everybody in West Yorkshire is an absolute priority of mine.

“My Safer Communities Fund uses money taken from criminals and gives it back to the communities harmed by their activities.

“I am delighted to support so many incredible local safety projects and am looking forward to supporting many more in the future.” 

The latest funded projects include:

• Youthology in Bradford who will be delivering football coaching, music tuition, dance lessons, and more, to young people who have been negatively impacted by the pandemic.
• Calderdale SmartMove will introduce a weekly women’s only group for women and girls with complex needs to discuss mental health, hear from guest speakers, and participate in physical activity sessions.
• Rainbow Baby Bank in Kirklees has seen a 77% increase in demand for their service supplying essential baby equipment to vulnerable families and mothers to be. They will be using their grant to provide a more accommodating, accessible, and private premises for the people they support.
• LADS West Yorkshire aims to tackle social issues that impact on men and boys. Their project will provide drugs intervention and prevention workshops across Bradford run by facilitators with lived experience.
• BASIS West Yorkshire will be delivering 30 weekly sessions to female indoor and street sex workers and sexually exploited women offering advice on saving, budgeting, debt, and other key aspects of financial wellbeing.

The Mayor’s Safer Communities Fund is financed by money from criminal activity that has been recovered by West Yorkshire Police and prosecutors under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

West Yorkshire Police Chief Constable John Robins QPM DL added:

“I am so pleased to see that this money, which has been confiscated from criminals following action from West Yorkshire Police, has come full circle and is being put to good use in our communities.”

“The funding enables these local groups and projects to play a key part in the partnership response to preventing crime, which can be so vital in making a difference to the lives of people in West Yorkshire.”