The BID Projects
Get Home Safe – Helping Women & Girls in our town centre Get Home Safe
Our team delivered a zero-tolerance campaign in association with key partners to help eliminate the risks of sexual harassment towards women and girls within our town centre.
Get Home Safe
Following the tragic murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa in London, the debate around how police and other services tackle crimes in which women and girls are disproportionately affected, such as stalking, harassment, sexual violence and domestic abuse, has featured prominently in the national conversation.
March 2022 saw Newcastle-under-Lyme BID secure £34,000 in funding from Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough to work in collaboration with and facilitate the roll-out of a number of initiatives within the Borough to raise awareness of sexual harassment towards women and ensure that as a town, we were all doing more.
Our initiative
One of the initiatives, a Women’s Safe Space was set up in a vacant space on the Ironmarket. The space, which has been set up and managed by Newcastle BID and Newcastle Borough Council, is staffed by support workers, security partners and volunteers who are able to provide assistance, offer a safe haven or signpost to services.
Staff within the ‘Women’s Safe Space’ will ensure the individual has a safe environment to wait for friends, charge their phones or contact someone to enable they get home safely. The staff within the space have direct contact with police in the town centre if a matter is more serious or a crime has been committed, as well as being in contact with local bars/pubs via radio.
As part of the initiative, the safe space also supplied a number of safety aids for women such as personal alarms, portable phone chargers and anti drink spiking kits etc. These safety aids were distributed to the public, local students and town centre workers.
Uber Rides
Anti Spiking kits for local hospitality
Personal Safety Alarms
Safer Spaces
The safe space is also utilised by local women’s wellness and health organisations to deliver additional support, including GLOW and Mind.
As part of the wider Safer Spaces initiative within the town centre, additional funding supplied enhanced CCTV and street lighting installed, key areas with the town identified as being safe for taxi pick ups and additional funding to support a refresh of the current taxi safeguarding training to include awareness information on potential vulnerabilities of women at night.
The Get Home Safe campaign gained Royal interest with HRH Countess of Wessex visiting the Women’s Safe Space in November 2022 to meet with the BID team and partners to discuss the impact of the campaign in the local area.
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