£750,000 funding secured for street safety in Blackburn

Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, in partnership with the Pennine Community Safety Partnership, have been successful in their bid to the Government for Safer Streets funding.

The money comes as part of £50 million of new funding announced for communities across England and Wales to make streets safer for all.

Working in collaboration with the Pennine Community Safety Partnership, £750,000 has been secured by Blackburn with Darwen Council’s Community Safety team for measures that will help to prevent violence against women and girls in public, neighbourhood crime and anti-social behaviour.

In Blackburn, this second award of Safer Streets funding will be concentrated in the Queen’s Park and Audley area, with the previous successful application already delivered in the Whalley Banks and Wensley Fold area.

Queen’s Park and Audley was chosen after careful and thorough assessment of crime statistics for the borough, in line with criteria defined by the Home Office.

Projects will be able to roll out extra CCTV and street-lighting in communities, expand work to change attitudes and behaviours and prevent these crimes happening in the first place.

Cllr Zamir Khan, Assistant Exec Member for Public Health, Prevention and Wellbeing at Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, said:

I’m pleased that the Council is to receive this much needed funding that will help to make our streets safer for residents.

Queen’s Park and Audley will see improvements and additions made over the next 12 months that will improve the quality of life for communities there.

It’s hugely important to us that everyone feels safe and welcome in their hometown, and this funding will allow us to ensure that’s the case.

I’d like to thank the officers and partners involved in securing this money.

Mark Aspin, Head of Service for Community Safety, Housing and Vulnerable People at Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, said:

To receive a second round of funding from Safer Streets is fantastic.

In our bid submission, we worked closely with the Pennine Community Safety Partnership to identify areas of Blackburn with Darwen that needed the additional funding most.

From this work, it was decided to focus within the Audley and Queen’s Park areas, in the hope of making the biggest difference.

We look forward to working closely with the communities here to make Blackburn a safer place for all.

This is the fourth round of the Safer Streets fund made available from the Government.

The first award of funding in Blackburn, totalling at £423,000, was used for improving properties and making them more secure, installing new CCTV, cleaning-up and enhancing green spaces, gating alleyways and upgrading street lighting.