Further £100k announced for Stockport’s Community-led Violence Reduction Programme

Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester, Kate Green, has announced further funding for all ten boroughs, including Stockport.

The Deputy Mayor has said '“…as the CLPs [Community-led programme] have matured in their partnership arrangements (with several of the programmes coming to the end of year 2 of their funding) it has become clear that funding cannot be allowed to cease and end the vital work being carried out in our communities.”

Stockport will receive the additional £100,000 funding in year 24/25

What is a Violence Reduction Unit ?

Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) is a team of subject leads and experts from Greater Manchester Police (GMP), Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), Greater Manchester National Probation Service, Public Health, NHS, Education, Community Voluntary Sector, Victim’s Voice, Youth Justice and Local Authorities, addressing the underlying causes of violence and working together with communities to prevent it.

Under the direct governance and oversight of the Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester, Greater Manchester Combined Authority plays host to the VRU.

In August 2019, the Mayor of Greater Manchester announced that the area’s approach to tackling violence would be “community-led” in line with our city region’s ambitious public service reform programme, leading to the establishment of the GM Community-Led Programme (CLP).

The key focus of the programme is ensuring that young people and stakeholders in a specific locality come together, focussing on a strengths-based approach to identify what work is already taking place, what gaps may exist, and what the opportunities might be to address these gaps. Key to this approach is harnessing and building on existing strengths and capacity from within the community to develop projects and activities. Ultimately, the CLPs are about working with communities to find solutions to problems that exist in their area.

Each of the ten boroughs in Greater Manchester have a Community Led Programme (CLP) - an alliance of VCFSE (Voluntary, Community Faith-based & Social Enterprise) organisations responding to community need in regards to violence reduction.

In the last 12 months in Greater Manchester, there were fewer than 90 hospital admissions due to assault by sharp object among victims aged under 25 (down by 17% compared to 2021, and down by 26% compared to the year pre-covid), and a significant decrease in homicides (down by 27% compared to 2021), and knife enabled homicides (down by 19% compared to 2021).

To find out more about the programme in Greater Manchester click here.

Stockport’s Community Led Programme

Sophie Cochrane-Powell is Stockport’s Violence Reduction Alliance Facilitator and is currently completing community engagement in the area to decide the priorities of the alliance.

You can contact Sophie via sophie.powell@sector3sk.org