Plans to make safety bus in West Yorkshire permanent after it helped a woman being stalked, a domestic abuse victim and woman who took overdose

Now plans are being looked at to make the pilot project, which ran in Leeds last month, a permanent one.

It was organised by Women’s Lives Leeds and the Safer Leeds Partnership off the back of a survey carried out last year which revealed that almost two-thirds of women feel unsafe when out and about in Leeds after dark, with half ‘always’ or ‘often’ feeling unsafe in the city centre at night. Ninety-seven per cent believed that ‘being a woman’ affects their personal safety in Leeds and 81 per cent identify men’s behaviour towards women as a major reason that they feel unsafe.

It had mobile phone charging facilities; water, refreshments and warm drinks; support calling a taxi; a place to wait for friends; somewhere to talk through concerns and be signposted for further support and somewhere to report incidents to the police and wait for further assistance.

Emily Turner from Women's Lives Leeds said: “We had a woman involved in a domestic violence incident, a woman being stalked by someone she didn’t know, which we picked up on cameras, and a young person who came to see us before she took an overdose and came back to us once she had done it.

“We could observe her to make sure she was okay and had staff and numbers for appropriate services. People don’t always want support at that time but the information is there for later. The woman that was being stalked, we managed to make contact with her sister and get her in a taxi - otherwise god knows what would have happened.”

While at times the service was quieter than expected, Ms Turner said they surveyed women out for the night and “overwhelmingly” they said they would use the service needed and felt safer knowing it was there.

The organisations involved are now looking to secure further funding from the Safer Streets Fund to run the bus again, and from businesses and organisations that want to help with a view to taking up a shop unit as a permanent base.

Ms Turner added that the service was needed more beyond 2am and Dortmund Square was the wrong location.

She added: “The point of the pilot was to learn this kind of stuff and it takes time for people to understand what the safety bus is and to have the confidence to use it. There is definitely an appetite for it.

“Violence against women and girls is the City Centre Partnerships number one priority. It is the priority of Tracy Brabin (Mayor of West Yorkshire). It has got feedback from professionals and the night-time economy and women themselves. We have all the evidence for it and everybody is keen to make it a more permanent offer.

“We have done a huge piece of work and said if we supported one person it would be worth it and we have done. That is what we wanted to do.”