West Yorkshire gets £655,000 to spend on making the county safer for women and girls

The new funding, achieved from the Home Office’s Safer Streets Fund will go on two projects.

The first is improving the safety and use of parks by women and girls, through multi-agency days of action to enhance the look and feel of the areas, training for frontline staff on conflict management and challenging inappropriate behaviour, as well as further research and confidence building initiatives.

A second scheme is to develop a higher/further education package to support womens’ safety and generate behaviour change in men. This includes active bystander training, a male role model and consent campaign, personal safety training, and additional support and awareness raising of victims’ services.

She said: "Improving the safety of women and girls is a fundamental pledge of mine and that of my Deputy for Policing and Crime, Alison Lowe. I am absolutely thrilled that we have been able to secure this substantial funding.

“These two projects are going to set a blueprint for tackling some key areas of concern such as safety in public spaces, education and behavioural change in men, aspects that I have long called for more focus on.

“As the detail of these initiatives show, there is no simple solution, but I will continue to work locally and nationally, with the police, partners and communities to bring about the changes that are desperately needed for everyone to feel safe.

“I would like to thank West Yorkshire Police, the local authorities and women and girl groups for all their work on the bids in conjunction with my office, I look forward to working together to deliver them.”

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