Community projects in Northamptonshire have received a funding boost thanks to the latest round of grants from the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Stephen Mold’s grant funds.

Grants to the value of £80,000 have been awarded to twelve different groups, all working in different ways to make their community safer.  This brings the number of groups supported with grants since 2017 to 25, and means around £180,000 has been made available for community projects.

The Northamptonshire Safer Communities Fund was created by the PFCC to support voluntary and community groups, charities and other voluntary organisations with projects that support the aims of his Police and Crime Plan.

PFCC Stephen Mold said: “Keeping this county safe isn’t the responsibility of Northamptonshire Police alone and I am pleased to support schemes that show individuals and organisations working alongside the police to help prevent and fight crime and protect people.”

This year, the PFCC has also made available the Northamptonshire Road Safety Community Fund and the Tackling Hate Crime Fund.

Projects funded as part of the latest round from the three funds are:

Northamptonshire Safer Communities Fund:

• St James, Spencer and Dallington Youth Club will be opening the club for an additional night each week to focus on working against knife crime, acid attacks, gangs and hate crime
• Groundwork Northamptonshire will be working with children in families affected by domestic abuse
• Northampton Carers will be raising awareness of crime and fraud amongst older people in Wellingborough
• Northampton Town Football Club Trust will be offering football sessions as a diversionary activity in the Hemmingwell and Queensway areas of Wellingborough
• Daylight Centre Fellowship, Wellingborough, is to open for five days each week to better support vulnerable and homeless people
• Right Resolution, which is running a project supporting young care leavers

Road Safety Community Fund:

• Northampton Advanced Motorists will carry out a project to support the education of young drivers
• Brightkidz received funding to run Brightwayz ST:EPS, a project that will enable three Kettering secondary schools to promote road safety and active travel
• Cotterstock Parish Council; Wilby Parish Council; Brigstock Parish Council all received grants to carry out projects to put up vehicle activated speed awareness signs

Tackling Hate Crime Fund:

• Get on Board Community Interest Company will provide training about learning disability delivered by people with learning disabilities

Stephen Mold, Northamptonshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, said: “One of the most pleasant parts of my job is being able to provide support and funding to some great causes.  Since I became Commissioner, I have had the honour of being able to support 25 really fantastic projects across Northamptonshire with almost £200,000 of funding. I was thrilled to meet the groups and tell them they were being funded and I look forward to visiting their projects to see how they will benefit their local communities.”

Alison Holland, Projects and Partnerships Director, Brightkidz, said: “We are thrilled to receive this funding for our new ‘Brightwayz ST:EPS’ project to promote road safety and active travel education within three Kettering secondary schools. We have seen a lot of success with our Brightkidz ST:EPS project (Safe Travel: Enabling Pupils and Schools) with primary schools in the town including Grange Primary Academy becoming the first school in the county to be awarded the DfT-backed Modeshift STARS accreditation for safe, sustainable travel. Now we are able to extend this to secondary schools which will enable pupils to travel in much healthier, safer and more environmentally-friendly ways.”

Anna Letts, Business Development Officer, Northampton Town FC Community Trust, said: “I am delighted to be linking up with the Police & Crime Commissioner on a project that will help a lot of people and let them know that knife crime is a very real problem we have. With the funding from yourselves and the coaching from us I believe this can be a very successful project that may change a lot of lives for the better.”

Applications for the next round of funding opened on July 22 and will close on August 30.  More details are available at www.northantspcc.org.uk/community-grants