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TruckWatch wins funding for summer expansion campaign
Page 24
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Crime fighting in Yorkshire has received a boost with extra funding for TruckWatch's ambitious expansion plans. Guy Sheppard reports.
THE TRUCKWATCH crimefighting initiative is to expand across the whole of Yorkshire and Humberside this summer after winning funding for two full-time posts. The regional development agency Yorkshire Forward is believed to be awarding £65,000 a year to the project, which has been running in South Yorkshire since 1997.
David Ransom, chief executive of the People United Against Crime (PUAC) charity which runs the local TruckWatch, hopes to increase the number of participating hauliers from the current 80 to as many as 500.
TruckWatch is backed by trade associations and the police; it provides hauliers with information about crime prevention and uses their drivers to look out for stolen vehicles.
The extra funding will last for 18 months; it will pay for a project manager and an admin assistant.
Chief Inspector Dave Fortune, who has been seconded to Yorkshire Forward to reduce the economic impact of crime, explains that TruckWatch forms an integral part of the regional freight strategy.
"There's an element of pumppriming to the funding so thatTruckWatch can become self-sustaining in the longer term," he adds.
Ransom reports that the proposed merger of police forces across the region gives the expansion plans added momentum: "We've made a hid for some match funding from Europe. If we get that money, we'll be looking to share best practice in fighting truck crime across Europe."
Operators in Suffolk have already agreed to discuss joining forces with Norfolk TruckWatch and Essex Police to coincide with the creation of more regionally based police forces (CM 16 March).