Northamptonshire Commissioner spent £4m on making streets safer since 2021

More than £4 million has been spent on initiatives to make Northamptonshire streets safer since 2021, thanks to grant funding awarded by the Home Office.

The Safer Streets Fund goes to the county's Office of the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (OPFCC), which has employed measures to prevent neighbourhood crime. Projects include the roll out of additional CCTV, street lighting, safety campaigns and educational programmes.

Since 2020, the Home Office has awarded police forces almost £160 million nationally through five rounds of the Safer Streets initiatives, with 413 projects funded across England and Wales.

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Over the years, Northants OPFCC has directed the money to many different projects. In each funding round, authorities must submit bids to the government laying out their plans.

According to data obtained from an FOI submitted by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, since 2021/22, the OPFCC has spent £298,507 on improved CCTV and lighting across the county.

A big focus across the Safer Streets project has been tackling violence against women and girls, specifically keeping them safe at night. £40,820 was spent on buying equipment and running the Safer Nights Out (SNO) van, which is located on the All Saints Plaza as a 'safe haven' for anyone who is in need of help on weekends.

More than £250,000 went towards education, awareness projects and campaigns, including the 'It Only Takes One Campaign', and training packages for the university, colleges, taxi drivers, bars and more. Additionally, just over £30,000 was spent on virtual reality equipment for the force, which was loaned to the University of Northampton to create an immersive experience focused on keeping themself safe in the Northampton night-time economy.

Other projects focused on crime prevention in specific areas across Northamptonshire. £369,000 was allocated to improving home security for a housing estate in Hemmingwell, Wellingborough. Another £431,789 was spent directly on safety improvements for the Queensway estate.

Some of the funds also went towards physical police presence, such as £70,000 for Operation Kayak- a project launched by the Force to reduce predatory behaviours and intercept harassment, and sexual violence in the night-time economy.

The breakdown of the figures do not include any money spent in match funding and only account for the funds spent directly from the Home Office grants.

Northamptonshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Danielle Stone said: “Safer Streets Funding has supported the Prevention Team in my office to work with partners to provide effective, practical measures to tackle neighbourhood crime. Our Big Conversation with people across the county made it very clear to me that people want to see action to tackle the priorities that matter to them. They want to feel safer in their homes and on the streets where they live.

“I am pleased that my Prevention team have been able to use this funding to work with partners and respond to local concerns, providing measures like CCTV, stronger doors, better lighting and alley gates that make communities safer and prevent crime.”

In the latest round of funding, PFCCs were invited to submit up to three proposals for their area. The Northants Commissioner was allocated £446,570 to deliver interventions from October 2023 to March 2025.

The money was split between a ‘Stand Up to Crime’ project in two neighbourhoods in Northampton and Corby, security improvements for the M1 Services and keeping women and girls safer in transport.

Up to £820,000 was up for grabs for each police force, however Northamptonshire received the lowest funding levels out of all 43 authorities. The only other Police and Crime Commissioner to receive under £700k was Gwent, in South Wales.

A spokesperson said that the OPFCC "had already carried out some significant projects with funding from the first four rounds and knew what we wanted to achieve with funding from Round 5.

"We bid for the funding we needed to put the proper crime prevention measures in place to tackle the root causes of those issues."

An OPFCC spokesperson has confirmed that the Commissioner will bid for more funding in the future if a new Safer Streets round is announced. Preventing acquisitive crime and anti-social behaviour and targeting violence against women would be key priorities for funding bids, if given the choice.