Police and Crime Commissioner, Dr Alan Billings, has visited one of the South Yorkshire parks benefitting from Home Office funding to create safer areas for women and girls across the county.

As part of the Safer Streets initiative, the Police and Crime Commissioner’s office secured £550,000 of funding to help make women and girls feel safer in public spaces.

The majority of the funding – £460,000 – was set aside to install lighting and CCTV in four public parks – one in each of the districts:

• Locke Park, Barnsley
• Far Field Park, Doncaster
• Clifton Park, Rotherham
• Ponderosa Park, Sheffield

Dr Billings said: “These areas across South Yorkshire were selected following public consultation about experiences and feelings of safety in public places.

“Over 2,000 responses pointed to a sharp drop in feelings of confidence at night and highlighted that parks and woodland areas were the areas where women felt most unsafe.

“I visited Far Field Park in Doncaster to see how local residents are benefitting from the additional lighting and CCTV and was pleased to see how prominently located the cameras are, which should act as a deterrent against criminal behaviour.

“Tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) is one of the priorities in my Police and Crime Plan and this Home Office funding will go some way to disrupt criminal activity and protect women and girls from violence in South Yorkshire.”

As well as CCTV cameras, Far Field Park also benefits from improved visibility at night, with the installation of solar-powered lighting throughout the park, which was installed as part of the Safer Streets funding.