The Minister for Policing, Nick Hurd, has written to Police and Crime Commissioners to say that £100m of additional funding is to be made available in 2019/20 to tackle serious violence, in particular knife crime.

£80m of this is new money from the Treasury.  Two thirds  (£65m) will support a surge in police activities in areas most affected. The remaining third is for funding longer term preventative measures.

South Yorkshire will receive £2m to carry out surge activity.

Surge operations will target those areas of South Yorkshire where there have been incidents of knife crime in public places.

Most of the money for a surge in operations is going to just 7 forces.  The others are the Metropolitan Police (London), West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, West Yorkshire and South Wales.

The seven forces account for 60% of hospital admissions for assault by a sharp object over the last three years.

Dr Alan Billings, South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner said: “Knife crime is a national problem, especially in the urban areas. I believe South Yorkshire Police, together with partners, are already getting on top of it in the county. We do not see anything like the situation that Londoners have to face.

“I welcome this money as it will enable the police to intensify operations in particular places.  However, this is short-term.  We also need to redouble our efforts to work with partners to get upstream of crime and tackle the roots of violent behaviour. Our main focus must be on preventing crimes in the first place.

“We must especially ensure that young people are not drawn into gangs and that requires a big community effort by police, schools, the local authorities, community groups and parents.”

Each police force area now has to formulate its plans and submit them to the Home Office by the end of May.