How our community is benefitting from cash seized from criminals

As MP for Blackpool South I love getting out and about in the community, visiting community projects, charities, schools, businesses and sports clubs. It’s so inspiring to see brilliant work being done across our town and meeting the people who hold our communities together.

I routinely ask the people I meet how I can help them, and while answers vary there’s one theme that inevitably comes up – money. Often they need long term sustainable investment and it’s my job to advocate that in Parliament, but sometimes people just need a relatively small cash boost to make a big difference.

I donate 10% of my salary to local charities so sometimes I am able to help, but I want to be able to do more. A good MP knows what their constituency needs and I wish I was able to allocate money when I identify a need, but government sadly doesn’t work that way.

Last summer Lancashire Police and Crime Commissioner, Clive Grunshaw answered my prayers. He launched his MP fund – redirecting proceeds of crime, cash seized from criminals, to MPs to allocate to projects that help tackle crime in their constituencies.

The MP Fund of £50,000 could be allocated to a single initiative or distributed across projects – which is what I chose to do.

Half of the money went straight to Blackpool Food Project, which was in great need of a cash boost to keep afloat. Poverty is one of the key drivers of crime and while food banks aren’t a solution to fixing poverty, right now they are essential. Blackpool Food Project supplies more than 120 local food banks, soup kitchens, community centres and refuges with the food they need to feed others and for every £1 donated it is able to supply £4 worth of food. That means that money redirected from criminal behaviour has been able to supply £100,000 worth of food to people in poverty in Blackpool.

£10,000 of the fund was used to purchase a mini bus for Brian Rose Boxing Academy – enabling young people to travel to competitions and sparring sessions across the country and allowing the team to extend their alternative education and outreach work into more isolated parts of our community. This grassroots boxing gym helps children aged 11 to 18 direct their energy into something positive. Instead of drifting towards anti-social behaviour or getting caught up in crime, they find structure, discipline, respect and resilience.

Next I allocated Rosscon Training £5,000. Rosscon is an alternative provision for vulnerable children and young adults who have been unable to navigate traditional classrooms. With courses and apprenticeships in areas including hair, beauty, childcare, home economics, and trades including bricklaying, carpentry and plastering, Rosscon helps young people reach their full personal potential and gain the skills required to achieve long-term employment.

PCC Clive Grunshaw at Rosscon in Claremont

I chose to share the remaining £10,000 across three worthy causes. In Brunswick I donated £3,000 to the burgeoning Splinter Group, which teaches carpentry skills to young people in a bid to divert them away from ASB and towards pathways in education and employment. In Mereside I donated £4,000 to the primary school to put on a community colour run and summer fair aimed at promoting community cohesion, and in South Shore I donated £3,000 to the Hub for the development of their community allotment which is giving people from all walks of life the opportunity to take part in a healthy activity.

What links each of these initiatives is prevention. Whether it’s tackling poverty, creating opportunities for young people, or building stronger community ties, this is about stopping problems before they start – not just dealing with the consequences later. Time and again I’m reminded that the answers to our problemsalready exist within our communities – my role is to listen, support and fight to get them the resources they deserve.

It was such a great opportunity to be able to support so many worthy causes across Blackpool, and I’m determined to find ways to do more. What this fund has shown is that when we invest directly in our communities, we don’t just respond to problems – we prevent them. I will continue to push for more funding and flexibility so we can back more of the people and projects already making a real difference across our town.