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Youth Shelters to be Installed in Hailsham Soon

Community, Youth Services

Hailsham Recreation Ground 

Following the request for new youth facility suggestions for the town and a successful grant application from the Government’s Safer Streets scheme, two new youth shelters will be installed in Hailsham in the coming weeks.

Hailsham’s young people will soon benefit from having youth shelters built at two locations in the town – the first on the Western Road Recreation Ground and the second at the skate park adjacent to the Maurice Thornton Playing Field.

At a meeting of Hailsham Town Council held last November, a number of other key proposals were put forward by members as a priority for recent government funding awarded to a part of Hailsham via the Safer Streets scheme to tackle acquisitive crime, including a CCTV upgrade for the town centre.

In 2021, following an application to the Home Office, Wealden District Council as lead bidders was awarded up to £309,453 through the Safer Streets initiative, which was set up to help make streets safer through projects to crack down on acquisitive crime such as burglary, robbery and vehicle theft.

The funding is being used to establish crime-preventative measures, including improved security measures, information projects and a neighbourhood watch scheme in parts of Hailsham, as a result of higher-than-average recorded incidences of the aforementioned neighbourhood crimes.

While the main priority is the required upgrade of the Town Council’s CCTV cameras located in the town centre, the successful application for a grant to purchase and install two youth shelters in the town has been welcomed with open arms.

Deputy Town Clerk & Business Enterprise Manager, Mickey Caira commented: “A considerable amount of work in the near future is set to take place to help make Hailsham town centre safer thanks to the securing of over £300,000 government funding,

“Dealing with acquisitive crime and antisocial behaviour is important to the community as a whole and I’m delighted that the Town Council was given a say on priorities for the town and to mark the beginning of what could be a period of significant investment in Hailsham town centre, as well as being successful in its bid for funding for the two youth shelters.”

“Hailsham has a strong sense of community spirit, but with some crimes taking place here, we hope this funding will have a positive impact on said crime rates in the area and go some way in terms of our priority of creating safe neighbourhoods, and working with project partners to put together a strong programme of activity that will make a big difference to the local community.”

Councillor Philip Lunn, the portfolio holder for Community and Public Health with Wealden District Council, said, “Wealden has been working with our partners including Sussex Police, Hailsham Town Council and East Sussex County Council and been successful in securing funding from the Home Office’s Safer Streets Fund.

“This can be spent on Home Office approved projects to reduce acquisitive crime in Hailsham town centre. The Home Office monitors the spending very carefully and is very strict with what the money can and cannot be spent on. We are pleased to be able to support Hailsham in this way and improve community safety in the town.”

Notes to Editors:

The funding criteria for the Safer Streets Fund is as follows:

Hailsham Safer Streets interventions will target improvements to residential home security, deliver multi-agency crime prevention advice with local partners for community benefit, extend capable guardianship in vulnerable locations and adopt intensive situational crime-prevention techniques in order to reduce levels of neighbourhood crime in the LSOA. A high level of in-kind contribution provides value for money and longer-term community engagement and sustainability.

The project will provide a range of opportunities and draw on the local community to ensure that a wide range of partners are involved in delivery. Using evidence from the Safer Streets Toolkit and other meta-analyses of the single and/or combined efficacy of the interventions in this bid, we estimate the average number of overall neighbourhood crimes reduced annually by approximately 30%.


Enquiries relating to this media release

Terry Hall, Communications Officer
Hailsham Town Council, Market Street, Hailsham, East Sussex, BN27 2AE
Telephone: 01323 841702 | Email: terry.hall@hailsham-tc.gov.uk