Hello

I'm delighted to announce that my Safer in Sussex Community Fund is now open for applications. You can find out more and apply for funding by clicking the banner above or going to the 'get involved, apply for funding' section of my website.

My fund provides financial support (grant awards up to £5,000) to local organisations and projects that aim to reduce crime and improve community safety.

Since becoming PCC, I have been able to support over 600 community groups with over £2.3m. Following an application and panel decision process, the funding gets awarded to a variety of groups. In the past, these groups have included: Nightlife Safety Advocates; Community Speedwatch; youth groups; funding for safety tools and equipment including additional CCTV and security radios; recovery hubs and training for specialist staff and volunteers in the community.

Hosting my Community Fund has always been a vital part of my role and it is always really interesting to see applications come in from such a broad range of groups. If you're interested in applying, a good place to start to see if your group is eligble, is to look at my Police & Crime Plan to understand my priorities. If your community groups aims or objectives fit within my three overarching public priorities, then we would really like to hear from you.

Safer shopping in Crawley

In March, Crawley businesses voted against maintaining their Town Centre Business Improvement District (BID). The BID was funded through a levy imposed via the business rates scheme and was not a ‘direct cost’ to individual businesses. Whilst its important that businesses have a say and need to see value from their business rate contributions, this decision has far-reaching consequences. For example, the BID funded an effective team of business wardens who will no longer operate across the town centre as a result.

One of the key objectives of the BID was to ‘make the town centre safer’ so I was keen to not lose momentum on some of the town’s safety initiatives already in place.

Consequently, I have stepped in to continue funding the Crawley and Gatwick Business Watch (CGBW) scheme with £25,000 as they previously received most of their funding from the BID. The funding will help CGBW to continue their work in preventing crime and keeping the town centre safe for retailers. Their initiatives include: the information-sharing platform Disc; updates for retailers on known criminals; security radios; support for businesses with licensing matters; as well as various training programmes.

Last week, I met with the Manager of Crawley and Gatwick Business Watch, Paul Dowling, at County Mall in Crawley. Joining the meeting were representatives from local businesses including Primark, Superdrug and The Entertainer as well as Sussex Police.

It was interesting to hear about the challenges the retailers face - in particular how they access and share their own store’s CCTV footage with police. We discussed ways to make this easier and devised a plan to ensure that providing information and intelligence to the police is quick and easy.

Katy Bourne OBE
Sussex Police & Crime Commissioner