The Home Office funding will help tackle knife crime.

A £1.54m fund is allowing Nottinghamshire Police to carry out targeted operations and hundreds of hours a month of extra work dedicated to tackling knife crime .

The Home Office funding will pay for extra high-visibility patrols, additional officers for the Knife Crime Team, more dedicated hours for officers to carry out knife-related arrest warrants, extra weapons sweeps, additional investment in intelligence gathering opportunities and a new dedicated role of knife crime analyst.

The funds are a major boost to the work already being carried out across the force all year round under Operation Scorpion, and aim to help the force better understand the issue so that resources can be targeted effectively.

Nottinghamshire Police has been chosen as one of 18 forces across the country to be granted the extra cash as knife crime continues to rise across the country. In Nottinghamshire, knife crime increased by nine per cent in the last calendar year, compared to 13% across the East Midlands.

The funding has already allowed Nottinghamshire Police to make a contribution to the cost of establishing the anti-knife crime Choices and Consequences exhibition centre at the National Justice Museum, in partnership with the Ben Kinsella Trust.

The funding is available until March 2020, and in July the spending plans include 100 extra hours of high-visibility patrols specifically targeting knife crime, and five opportunities to run Operation Guardian – targeting drugs and associated violence in the night time economy in the city and county.

Assistant Chief Constable Kate Meynell, of Nottinghamshire Police, said: "This new funding will allow a real surge in activity around knife crime and we are hopeful it will make a tangible difference in reducing weapon-enabled criminality.

"We will be able to dedicate hundreds of extra hours every month to tackling the problem as well as directing funds at targeted operations, intelligence gathering, understanding the issue and even purchasing equipment to detect weapons and knives and technology to perform our role.

"This is all on top of the work we do already to tackle knife crime - so for example the existing Knife Crime Team is benefitting from attachments of extra officers and Operation Guardian can now be carried out with more regularity and across the county instead of just the city.

"Whilst the funding is available we will use it to the best of our ability to have the greatest impact.

"However, we know knife crime cannot be tackled by enforcement alone and whilst this money is a great help, we will continue to work with our partners and communities to ensure the next generation is steered away from knife crime, through education and positive role models."

Police and Crime Commissioner for Nottinghamshire Paddy Tipping said: “This funding is urgently needed and I am pleased our campaigning has been successful. I’ve been calling on the Government to equip police forces with the resources they need to tackle the knife crime epidemic and, while it won’t solve all our problems, this money will certainly make a difference.

“Lives are being lost through violence and knife crime but they can be saved. With the right support, young people can be given better choices and made to understand violence or gang life is never the answer to their problems.

“This grant will enable us to confront knife crime head on but enforcement is only a short-term fix. Nottinghamshire – and Britain – needs a long-term vision to solve the psychological and social roots of serious violence and that battle will continue in earnest.”