£1.6m allocated to Thames Valley Police to tackle serious crime in Milton Keynes

The investment is part of a £35.5 million fund being allocated to tackle serious crime and help prevent violent incidents happening across the country.

Violence Reduction Units (VRU) bring together organisations across local communities to tackle violent crime and address its underlying causes. The funding also includes local projects doing preventative work with children and young people.

The allocation brings the total funding targeted at violent crime up to £105 million under the current government.

In their first year of activity, initiatives funded by the scheme supported more than 100,000 young people, more than 51,000 of whom were identified as being at high-risk of being involved in criminal and violent activity.

The initiative provides an opportunity for police, education leaders, health workers and local government to get together to share information about the causes of violence and agree a coordinated plan of action to tackle it.

The MP for Milton Keynes North, Ben Everitt, has welcomed the additional funding for Milton Keynes. Speaking on his website, he said: "This is excellent news for Milton Keynes and the wider Thames Valley area.

“Violent crime has robbed too many young people of their futures and we are backing our police with funding, power and resources to keep the public and communities safe.”

The VRU takes a public health approach to tackling violence . Looking at violence not as isolated incidents or solely a law enforcement problem but instead as a preventable consequence of a range of factors such as adverse early-life experiences or harmful social or community experiences and influences.

Thames Valley’s VRU therefore focuses on four main themes: early intervention and prevention, supporting communities and partnerships, tackling county lines and the misuse of drugs, and effective law enforcement and the criminal justice response.

These goals can be seen in active initiatives the unit are currently running such as: work with schools to develop educational materials for students and parents, mentoring and detached youth work, community engagement events and drug diversion schemes for young people under 18.