Greater Manchester Police step up efforts to keep women and girls safe on nights out
An additional £50,000 in funding will see GMP intensify uniform and plain clothed resources across busy weekend evenings this summer
Greater Manchester Police have relaunched their summer ‘Safer Streets’ operation, which is expanding across all Manchester City Centre night-time economy hotspots.
With a focus predominantly on tackling violence against women and girls, an additional £50,000 in funding will see GMP intensify uniform and plain clothed resources across busy weekend evenings throughout the whole summertime.
This operation will place focus on prevention of incidents, training of those who work in the night-time economy to play their role in spotting and calling out predatory behaviour, safeguarding vulnerable people, and proactively targeting those committing offences such as rape, sexual assault, spiking, harassment, and voyeurism, to name a few.
Just last week, 150 bar staff in the Northern Quarter were trained on issues such as spiking and the Ask for Angela scheme.
From December 2023 to March 2025, this operation saw rape offending decrease by 50%, theft from person offences decrease by 61% and personal robbery decrease by 39%.
Both spiking and other sexual offences did see an increase (3% and 31% respectively), but this came from an increase in reports being made by door and bar staff on the back of multi-agency training and education sessions run with them.
Crime as a whole reduced by 27%.
Superintendent Nicola Williams, who leads operations within Manchester City Centre, said: “Manchester’s night life scene is one of the many things that makes Manchester such a thriving and exciting city for those that live, work, study, or visit here, and it’s important that everyone can make the most of it safely.
“This additional funding is supporting us to put extra resources into the busiest areas on the busiest days, and hopefully bring similar crime reductions to other night life hotspots.
“Our focus will be on tackling the issues that predominantly impact women, but our officers will also be a visible and undercover presence to identify and intervene when they witness any type of incident or unacceptable behaviour.”
Deputy Leader of Manchester City Council, Cllr Joanna Midgley, said: “Through the launch of the Council’s pioneering WalkSafe initiative and Night Time Safety Charter we have demonstrated just how seriously we take the issue of violence against women and girls.
“Manchester is an incredible place to live, work and play and we have a night time economy and social scene which is renowned. However no one, regardless of their gender, should fear for their safety when experiencing Manchester.
“Alongside our colleagues in the Police and other city-wide agencies we want to send the message that we are doing everything in our power to ensure Manchester is safe for everyone.”