Northumbria Police antisocial behaviour crackdown could stop abruptly as boss issues warning
Funding for a major anti-social behaviour crackdown project cannot be guaranteed next year, the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has warned.
It comes following the Government’s announcements in November that PCCs will be phased out in 2028.
Northumbria PCC Susan Dungworth alerted councillors from across the region on Tuesday that she is uncertain whether Project Shield will receive funding from the Home Office next year. This is despite figures from the police boss’s annual report unveiling a 32% drop in anti-social behaviour (ASB) in areas targeted by the project in the second quarter of this year.
This is also coupled with a 22% reduction in ASB across the force area as a whole this year.
The project, which received £1.8m in central Government funding this year, was launched in July 2024. The initiative allows for the force to work alongside six local authorities and transport providers, to tackle anti-social behaviour and serious violence across known hotspot areas.
At the Northumbria Police and Crime panel, the PCC said: “My warning is that I would be very, very, very surprised if we received funding from the Home Office for Project Shield next year. So, I would ask you as local authorities and your community safety partnerships to be thinking about how we continue to do this work together.
“We have seen such big decreases in ASB, we have such good information coming back from residents about how they feel safer in areas, how they’ve seen that work, that we need to find a way that a lot of that work continues as business as normal.
“But we cannot guarantee the extra funding so that is going to be challenging for every one of us in this room.”
The drop in recorded incidents of ASB from September 2024 to September 2025 by local authority area are as follows:
- Sunderland: 6,625 – 5,122 (23%)
- South Tyneside: 4,174 – 3,160 (24%)
- Gateshead: 4,736 – 3,760 (21%)
- North Tyneside: 5,507 – 3,854 (30%)
- Newcastle: 10,179 – 8,308 (18%
- Northumberland: 6,987 – 5,551 (21%)
On November 13, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood MP announced that PCCs were to be wound down in 2028, coinciding with scheduled elections for the role. The Home Office cited “unnecessary bureaucracy”, and the low “public understanding of” or engagement with PCCs amongst the reasons to wind the roles down.
The Government also claimed that £20m a year could be returned to frontline policing if the position of PCC and their offices were abolished.