The Commissioner’s Grant Scheme (CGS)
This budget focuses on projects committed to delivering outcomes in the Safer West Mercia Plan.
£20,000 – Fly-tipping
To Herefordshire CSP for fly-tipping initiatives. To involve partners such as the Rural Hub, NFU, local police rural and business crime officer, parish councils and land owners to create a toolkit to provide to landowners allowing them to be part of the solution to reduce fly tipping.
£344,785 – Safer Streets 4
The PCC was successful in being awarded this funding from the Governments fourth round of Safer Streets. The funding will be used to improve safety of women and girls across West Mercia. Furthermore, the funding will be invested to increase the number of street watch schemes, provide a digital platform for volunteers to support victims, run an education
programme for partners working in the night time economy and schools and colleges focused on healthy relationships.
Preventing/reducing burglary
Upper Tier Local Authority Councillors have access to financial support for reducing acquisitive crime. The PCC is offering a 25% contribution to the We Don’t Buy Crime (WDBC) scheme increasing the reach across West Mercia. £87,710 has been made
available from the PCC to invest in this initiative.
WDBC towns and villages are where 70% of residential properties have marked their possessions with Smartwater (a water-based solution with a unique forensic code that shows up under UV light). WDBC signs are installed through the village/town warning
potential offenders to prevent burglary. Traces of Smartwater found on an offender provides the evidence required for a successful prosecution. Registered Smartwater identified on stolen property increases the likelihood of it being returned to the
owner. Since 2015 3,904 kits have been registered in Herefordshire.
Community Safety Partnership (CSP) Grants
Each CSP is provided with a ring-fenced budget from the PCC. This budget is spent on proactive community safety initiatives, addressing local needs and creating a safer and more secure West Mercia.
Core funding £100,666 allocated as follows:
£20,000 – CSP Analytical Support
This team support the Council and other partnerships with analytical support and have a wide range of skills and knowledge.
£5,000 – IOM
IOM and reducing reoffending is a long-established issue linked to expanding preventative measures, community safety would be greatly improved. The funding will be utilised to take up schemes such as the “Buddi-tag system” and the charitable Probation Care Trust who offer immediate, tailored support to offenders across West Mercia, to assist them in
integrating back into the community and breaking the cycle of reoffending.
£56,000 – Hate Crime
To provide funding for a 12-month project which will deliver an engagement and awareness programme to increase public awareness of and confidence in reporting hate-related crimes and incidents. We will achieve this by targeting organisations that are closely
related to those at higher risk of vulnerability or are community based to broaden our reach to those who might otherwise feel apprehension in reporting.
£9,197 – Crimestoppers
Funding contributes towards the salary of a Regional Manager who will deliver 3 anti-crime campaigns a year.
£6,000 – Child Exploitation Conferences
This funding application is to pay for external speakers at the two joint Herefordshire Community Safety Partnership and Herefordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership Child Exploitation Conferences to be held in May 2022 and July or October 2022.
The conferences are targeted at professionals and those who have contact with children and those at risk, such as volunteers.
£25,000 – HCSP – Tackling Domestic Abuse in Herefordshire
A 3-part project to provide interventions to support victims of domestic abuse, strengthen interventions and to upskill the Herefordshire workforce and volunteers on responding to domestic abuse in Herefordshire.
£20,000 – Hereford Winter Homeless Night Shelter
This project provides a partnership approach, being proactive in reducing vulnerability of rough sleepers or those at risk of homelessness. Through robust safeguarding frameworks, the project ensures earlier identification of those at risk, problem solving earlier up stream to prevent crisis of significant harm.
£5,000 – Roll out of DISC
In order to ensure that all pub watch schemes are able to share key information to assist with keeping the NTE safe.
CCTV
£20,000
Installation of Two IP (Internet Protocol) CCTV Cameras in Eign Gate and upgrade of three analogue CCTV cameras to IP CCTV Cameras in Hereford Cathedral Grounds.
Commissioner’s Community Fund (CCF)
The PCC provides the safer neighbourhood teams with the autonomy to support local initiatives. A branch of this fund is for ‘safer roads’, whereby SNTs can apply for funding to prevent the harm caused by a road traffic collision in the areas they serve.
Some examples include:
£900 – Steer Clear
For Steer Clear to Intelligence led programme to deliver a diversionary workshop to young people at risk of involvement in knife crime.
£1,300 – Prevention Symposium
A contribution to the Herefordshire prevention symposium event hosted by The Bishop of Herefordshire and the Health and Wellbeing board.
£1,000 – Bike Track
For a bike track which will be a positive diversion for the Youths that are causing the ASB in the local area of Kingstone Hereford.
£1,000 – Fit and Fed
The boxing group is always very busy, having at least 20-40 plus youths per session, per day. Last year saw 3 more activities join the programme which included, Cheerleading, Street dancing and Drama. The activities help to decrease anti-social behaviour and crime.
£3,000 – Generation Z
The aim is to provide a safe zone for vulnerable/disadvantaged/socially excluded young
people in Hereford along with the prevention of young people getting into minor crime or drug misuse with good support, positive activities and opportunities to
get creative and expressive and met new people.
£373 – Police Superbowl
The purpose is to provide free food and activities for aged 11-16-year-old members of our community. Identifying vulnerable community members: those who would not perhaps ordinarily have access to such activities or be seen by any other professional during the school holidays.
£3,490 – Personal Safety Talks to Higher Education Students
The Hereford College of Arts on College Road is used by Higher Education students who are mostly from out of county and therefore less knowledgeable about Hereford
geographic. A PCSO has been requested to attend their Fresher’s Fayre on 20/09/2022 with a view to talking about personal safety and to allay any fears or apprehensions
they may have about the city.
£4,599 – Fit and Fed Boxing Club
The funding is to purchase the kit that can be used to further develop the local children who attend the scheme(s). The service is provided free and attempts to divert those at risk of offending from committing crimes and channel their energies into boxing and
engaging with the Police.
£591 – Hate Crime Prevention
To engage with and provide invention through education to enable students to think before they act and to prevent hate crime.
£366 – Ross on Wye RAF Air Cadets
To support the local RAF Air Cadets who are based in Ross-on-Wye which provides a programme of varied activities for local children, teaching them important life skills to aide development into well rounded young adults.
£522 for Hate Crime Posters
Hate crime printed materials are currently in English as well as other European languages, therefore are not inclusive to everyone in our community. The recent increase in refugee numbers into our communities has highlighted that the current language bank is insufficient. Often victims of hate crime do not have English as their first language. The aim of this application is to seek funding to translate the posters from English into Ukrainian, Persian, Pashto, Arabic and Kurdish, so that victims of Hate crime are able to access pertinent information from West Mercia Police.
Commissioner’s Community Fund (Safer Roads)
Some examples include:
£2,407 – Hope Caple
For the purchase of 1 x speed indicator device (SID) to be moved around parish.
£3,200 – Young Driver Experience
The young people will have the opportunity to learn basic skills about driving a car and car maintenance. As well as understand the importance of being safe drivers as they start to learn to drive, understanding the impact of road traffic collisions through consequences of their choice. Ultimately to enjoy being safe drivers for their future.
£672 – Speed reduction in Lyonshall Parish
Funding for Solar panels for SID devices.
£1,950 – Be Bright Be Seen campaign in Hereford
To support local cyclists, old and young, across the south of Hereford (Schools, Rotherwas Industrial Estate) and ensure they are safe on the roads by purchasing hi-vis
items to distribute at Be Bright Be Seen events.
The above list of PCC funding initiatives is in addition to the West Mercia wide funded projects which are also available to the communities of Herefordshire.
