A multi-agency partnership led by Derby City Council has seen £750,000 of Home Office money invested in making areas of the city more attractive places to be, by sprucing them up and making them less susceptible to anti-social behaviour.

Projects funded by the Safer Streets 4 programme are making a real difference to the lives of the city’s communities, involving neighbours in making areas of unused space more welcoming, deterring anti-social behaviour, and offering young people opportunities to gain skills and play a positive role in their communities.

Highlights include:

  • Various grounds and cleansing works, including mural painting of the Racecourse subway, and works to the raised planters on Normanton Road to brighten up and enhance the area. 
  • Landscaping and physical improvements – including gating of hot spots, re-surfacing of the cricket nets and new basketball hoops and backboards at Shaftesbury Park, and the creation of a community garden at Society Place in Normanton involving local schoolchildren.
  • Working with partners such as Community One, Down to Earth Derby and Engineered Learning to provide skills training for young people, opening up opportunities for their futures.
  • Trialling of the Better Streets programme to raise awareness and reduce fly-tipping. 
  • Delivery of drugs, alcohol and resilience training programme to 433 school pupils, equipping them with valuable skills to take a stand against knife crime, hate crime, legal and illegal drugs. 
  • Purchase of a scrambler motorbike for police to address problems with off road motorbikes.
  • Installation of 11 CCTV cameras within hotspot areas for anti-social behaviour across the city. 
  • Training materials and sessions to raise awareness and knowledge about environmental crime, and how the community can come together to help improve local areas. 

Councillor Hardyal Dhindsa, Cabinet Member for Communities and Streetpride, said:

“By working together with partners and residents, we can make communities stronger.

“For this round of Safer Streets funding we looked at measures to prevent crime from happening, by working with residents to make their communities more attractive and a place they can feel proud of. We’ve also supported our young people, giving them training in resilience against being drawn into crime, and providing skills training to give them the opportunity to play a positive part in their communities.

“Whilst further funding is needed for some of the initiatives to continue, many of the projects will leave a lasting legacy in these areas. For example, members of the community have been very much involved in the landscaping projects and will help to care for these spaces. Young people have new skills they can take into their communities and the workplace and the interventions used in the Better Streets programme will be used in other problem areas.”

Since 2020 Derby City Council has been awarded a total of £1.7 million from the Home Office Safer Streets Fund, to invest in initiatives which target neighbourhood crime, violence against women and girls, and anti-social behaviour, improving the safety of public spaces for all.