Cheshire Constabulary will receive £4 million to help tackle anti-social behaviour, drug crime, shoplifting and robbery.
On April 10, the government announced new plans to improve neighbourhood policing across the country.
Under these plans, every neighbourhood in England and Wales will have dedicated teams spending their time on the beat, with guaranteed police patrols in town centres and other hotspot areas at peak times such as Friday and Saturday nights.
Cheshire Constabulary is set to receive £3 million of funding under the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, adding 48 dedicated officers into Cheshire’s communities. The other £1 million will be used to tackle anti-social behaviour in hotspot areas across the county.
Assistant chief constable for Neighbourhood Policing, Alison Ross, said: “We’re delighted to get this extra funding which will support our ongoing work to keep Cheshire a hostile environment for criminals as well as preventing and tackling crimes such as ASB, drug dealing and supplying and street theft and robbery.
“We already have a real focus on neighbourhood policing in Cheshire, with named officers in each ward along with a number of proactive initiatives and ongoing operations in place to tackle crimes such as these head-on, and we are now looking at how we can best utilise this funding to give our neighbourhood teams the further resources they need.
“Ensuring our local policing teams are dedicated to making our public spaces be safe and feel safe for those who live, work, and visit Cheshire is a top priority and we will use this funding to keep Cheshire’s communities even safer.”
This will be the second year the Force has received funding for Operation Sidelines, and there have already been a number of positive results.
In April 2024, 786 incidents of ASB were recorded in Cheshire, compared to 682 incidents in March 2025 – an overall reduction across all the hotspots of 13%.
When it comes to serious violence, 631 incidents were recorded in April 2024, compared to 200 incidents being reported in March 2025 – an overall reduction of 68%.