Funding grant to help curb serious violence

LEICESTER, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLR) will benefit from a £1.5m funding boost over the next three years to bolster efforts to prevent serious violence.

Police and Crime Commissioner Rupert Matthews has welcomed a three-year annual funding grant worth over £1.5 million up to invest in measures to tackle violence.

The ‘Grip’ funding from the Home Office will enable the PCC to boost police activity and enforcement in violence ‘hotspots’ across the city and two counties until the end of March 2025.

The announcement comes following news that the county’s Violence Reduction Network (VRN) will also receive 3 years funding totalling over £3.5 million to tackle the causes of serious violence locally through investing in prevention activity.

Mr Matthews said: “There is no quick-fix to ending violence however the work we are doing is already making a difference. A multi-year funding grant will allow us to plan ahead with certainty and sustain our focus on both prevention and criminal justice responses.

“The Minister is clearly impressed with our approach [in LLR] and remarked on our increased analytical capacity and the way we have repositioned our resources. I have no doubt that this grant offer is a reflection of the promising results we have achieved thus far in reducing violence.

“Tackling violence is a team effort. We will not only concentrate our efforts on pursuing offenders and supporting victims but also ensuring those already caught or at risk of entering the justice system have the help they need to change course.”

Assistant Chief Constable David Sandall added: “Leicestershire Police has fully integrated with the aims of the Violence Reduction Network to help make Leicester and Leicester and Rutland a safer place. The Home Office ‘Grip funding’ has enabled additional effective targeting of violent locations, investment of police resources to support schools, more officers to be proactively problem solving in local neighbourhoods and an academically evidencebased hotspot policing operation to be implemented, successfully reducing crime harm in the hotspot areas.”

Previous ‘Grip’ grants have enabled Leicestershire Police to fund new analytical equipment to record, report and monitor activity in violence hotpots and the impact this has on crime.

They have also funded operational activity including increased visibility patrols to reduce violence and deter people from carrying weapons.