Southern Co-op has announced its second round of funding to help tackle the causes of crime within local communities, with a £120,000 donation.
The money offered through its Safer Neighbourhood Fund will see 15 grants of up to £8,000 available to local community projects in Portsmouth, Southampton, Bristol, Bournemouth and South London.
This comes as more than 25,000 incidents are expected to be reported across the regional Co-operative‘s businesses this year, following a 50% increase in offences from 2020 to 2021 which saw store colleagues impacted by violence or the threat of violence and abuse.
The fund, which will be open for applications over the next six weeks, builds on Southern Co-op’s previous donations in 2020 which saw £100,000 invested into communities most impacted by crime across its trading area.
This saw 1,300 people supported, which included offenders and those at risk of offending and as a result of the funding, reoffending rates dropped between 0% to 4.2% at four of the projects.
Of those supported by these projects and charities, over half have improved their confidence and more than 600 have overcome personal barriers including obtaining vital ID for benefits and work, finding secure accommodation, finding employment and stopping dependence on alcohol.
“There have been some positive steps forward in the last few years but sadly crime is still on the increase,” Southern Co-op chief executive, Mark Smith said.
“So we need to continue to tackle business crime from every angle to protect our colleagues and customers to enable us to continue to serve local communities across the south.
“The previous round of funding was such a success that we are opening up the opportunities to even more people – this will mean a total of £220,000 donated to local causes and projects.
“Hopefully we can replicate the previous results and help more people to overcome personal barriers and move away from criminal behaviours.”
