£1bn VAWG Strategy: Will It Make Leeds Safer for Women?
New government strategy announced to tackle violence agasint women and girls
Image Credit: Chase Yi on Unsplash
In December 2025, the government published a new strategy to tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG).
Critical to this was the pledge of £1bn funding, with the aim to halve violence against women within the next decade.
Under the West Yorkshire Police, VAWG is an umbrella term for crimes including female homicide, rape, domestic abuse, stalking, harassment and much more.
Following an epidemic of abuse and violence in the UK, VAWG has been labelled a national emergency by the government.
Central to the government’s plans is focusing on education to tackle the young boys prejudice views.
The strategy, which has been named a “milestone” by women’s organisations, will focus on preventing harmful behaviour in boys by teaching them about consent, relationships and pornography during school years.
The government quotes that it wants to “back up its words with action”.
Kier Starmer said “toxic ideas are taking hold early and going unchallenged”.According to the Home Office, stats show that 40% of teenagers in relationships are victims of relationship abuse, and over 40% of young men hold a positive view of Andrew Tate.
Critical to this is the question of how it will impact women in Leeds.
In Leeds, there have been ongoing calls to improve safety for women on the streets, especially for students on nights out, with an increasing concern about assault cases in Hyde Park.
Following attacks, women have asked for more lighting in the streets to help improve safety. Particularly in the winter months, there are longer and darker hours, which have a significant impact on safety.
With the new VAWG announcement, hopefully, more funding will help to mitigate cases in high-risk areas and improve women’s safety.
Currently, as part of the Leeds City Council’s commitment to end violence, they have partnered with WalkSafe to release an app to track location and journeys for women. Important to this is sharing routes and alerting contacts if you need help.
Dr May Newisar, a lecturer in Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Leeds, also suggests that the planning of the city needs more consideration to protect women. When designing cities, she says that it is mainly men taking the lead in design who hold the assumption that safety is the same for all genders. However, this is not the case.
Funding needs to be used to improve the physical spaces in the city with the partnership of women and girls, ultimately to make spaces safe and enjoyable.
Dr Newisar conducted a study on women’s levels of fear in public spaces across Leeds, with women sharing that they need to take a lot of safety precautions when walking, which is “very draining”.
The study highlighted that the city centre, Wood House Moor and the canalside were amongst areas of “unsafe experience”.
With the new VAWG announcements, hopefully, this will be a chance for the government to respond to the problems in Leeds and help improve safety amongst women.