People in Southport are being invited to support a new Community Action Group as they work with Merseyside Police to improve our town.
Sefton Police Inspector Paul Holden invited local residents interested to get in touch as he encouraged them to help shape local priorities.
He spoke as he hosted the ‘Support Southport’ event at The Bold in Southport which saw police officers distribute £25,000 to a total of 18 schemes led by local groups which all aim to improve local communities in the town.
Organisations which won a share of the funding include: The White House, Compassion Acts, Brighter Living Partnership, Southport Football Club, The Youth & Community Partnership, Phoenix Youth Project, Friends of Bedford Park, We Grow Co, The Cupboard Southport, FC Sandgrounders and more.
Sefton Police Inspector Paul Holden said:
“I’m looking for volunteers to keep coming together and keep meeting with us and providing us with the community voices that we need to shape the way you want Southport to be policed.
“We call them Community Action Groups (CAGs) so from today I want to create a brand new CAG for Southport and we are looking for volunteers for that.
“It used to be a ‘you said, we did’ approach. So ‘you tell us what’s going on, and we’ll come back in a few months to tell you what we did about it’.
“Times have changed and we can’t do that any more.
“It’s now a case of ‘you said, and how are we going to work together to resolve it’.
“And by doing that, instead of 100 people putting demands on police resources, 100 people become police resources. And we work together on how we make things better.
“None of us ever want to see another event like last year. Either in July or in August.
“My plea to you is – stay with us, support us, come back with us, get involved in our Community Action Group, and hopefully we’ll see a lot more of each other in a positive way.”
Inspector Holden also thanked local people for their kindness following last summer’s tragedy and the riot that followed, which sawe over 50 local police officers hospitalised with a variety of injuries.
He said: “When I say ‘thank you’, that is from the bottom of my heart.
“Since last summer, the way Southport has got around us, our police officers, our PCSOs, it has been colossal.
“The Chief Constable mentioned people bringing things in after what happened – little gifts, boxes of chocolates, packets of biscuits- there was that much that came in, we made 90 hampers and distributed them, some to colleagues who dealt with what they had to deal with, and some wider than that. So thank you.
“If you see any cops or PCSOs on the street – just say hello. That’s all I ask.” ‘Support Southport’ brought together local residents, community groups and statutory partners, to decide how public money should be spent for the benefit of their community.
With the focus on projects which aim to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour or support vulnerable people, bidding groups each had two minutes to gain support for their project and present to members of the community what they propose to use the funding for.
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