Major regeneration initiatives and associated developments are helping to make Liverpool safer, cleaner and greener. 

However, there are some neighbourhoods in Liverpool that have yet to reap benefits from the progress the city has already made,  Many of our communities still suffer disproportionately from high crime, poor housing, degraded environments, long-term unemployment, poor health and a poor quality of life.  We intend to address these challenges.

Our partners provide many mainstream services – such as housing, streetscape services, crime reduction / enforcement activities, and services for supported living.  These all provide the support needed to improve conditions and make our neighbourhoods and our communities safer and stronger.  However, despite significant progress on many fronts and in many neighbourhoods, concentrations of poverty and poor physical environments remain on an unacceptable scale.

We need to ensure that we are appropriately targeting and investing our services and resources in these neighbourhoods and that we are working with and empowering communities in service planning / delivery issues, and in solutions to challenges.  This includes helping people who are experiencing social exclusion (for example, people who are homeless, or those with offending history) to get the most appropriate services and action to help them. 

We recognise this is a long-term job and that not all change will be immediate.  Neither is there a ‘one size fits all’ solution.   We need to:

• bring together services, partners and communities in joined up solutions to local problems at a neighbourhood level;
• use our mainstream services even more effectively, to promote new ways of working and to not be so dependent on short-term external grants so that we are encouraging more sustainable development;
• work in harmony across all the Local Area Agreement blocks and cross cutting issues, across neighbourhoods, across the city and across the region. 

The image of the city and our neighbourhoods is important.  Not only do these run down poorly serviced neighbourhoods disadvantage their residents, they also diminish the wider reputation and image of the city.  Therefore, we need to build the right image and infrastructure, and to work together towards making Liverpool a more attractive and safer, cleaner, greener place to live, work, visit, study and invest.

The Safer & Stronger Communities Block of the Local Area Agreement provides an opportunity to further integrate partnership planning activity and delivery on a number of safer and stronger communities priorities.  The key plans that inform the Safer & Stronger Communities block include:-

• Crime, Disorder, Anti-Social Behaviour and Drugs Misuse Audit 2004 and Partnership Strategy 2005 – 2008
• Safer & Stronger Communities Fund Mini-Local Area Agreement 2005 – 2008
• Policing Plans
• Housing Plans
• Neighbourhood Delivery Plans
• Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy
• Sustainable Community Strategy
• RESPECT Agenda
• National Community Safety Plan
• National Drugs Strategy and Treatment Plans
• Strong & Prosperous Communities White Paper
• Supporting People – Five Year Strategy
• Youth Justice Plan

Find out more about the Liverpool First for Safer & Stronger Communities Partnership