Blackpool gets £45,000 boost to tackle rough sleeping and addiction

I’ve secured an extra £45,000 for Blackpool to strengthen drug and alcohol treatment for people sleeping rough.

This money is on top of the £2.86 million I secured earlier this year to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping in 2025/26 – £877,000 of which was for drug and alcohol treatment. It’s part of the Labour Government’s £84 million national package announced today, on World Homeless Day.

In Blackpool we see the impact of addiction, mental ill health and homelessness every day. Too many people are stuck in a cycle they can’t break on their own and this new funding will go straight into treatment and recovery services that help people turn their lives around.

With Gemma Mukadam (left) and Joanne Worrell (right) from drug and alcohol support service, Horizon, who trained the MP in administering a lifesaving drug for opioid overdose last week.

The money will fund proper, evidence-based support – detox and rehab programmes, mental health and trauma care and practical help to stop people returning to the streets.

Last week I visited the team at Changing Futures, a partnership between local agencies – including Public Health, Empowerment charity’s lived experience team, drug and alcohol recovery charity Horizon and Adult Social Care. They come together to support adults with multiple disadvantages, such as homelessness, substance misuse and mental ill health.

While I was there, I was trained to use Naloxone, the life-saving medication that reverses opioid overdoses. They gave me a kit to carry with me in case I ever come across an emergency situation. Changing Futures is doing vital work to flood the town with Naloxone and train as many people as possible to save lives.

Being shown how to administer Naloxone by staff at Horizon, part of the Changing Futures programme.

Seeing that work up close makes this funding even more important to me. It will give more people a real chance to get clean, safe and rebuild their lives.

After years of neglect under the Tories, we finally have a government that’s backing towns like ours. Labour is serious about tackling the root causes of homelessness and giving Blackpool the tools it needs to get people off the streets for good.

You can’t fix rough sleeping overnight. But with proper funding, local expertise and compassion, we can face the current emergency head on. That’s what this money will help us do.