UK police forces are increasing patrol hours to help tackle violent shop crime as part of the final allocation of a £100m fund.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid has now fully allocated the fund announced in March to 18 police forces. 

The five police forces with the largest allocation (£41.48m) are the Metropolitan Police (£20.84m), West Midlands (£7.62m), Greater Manchester (£4.8m), Merseyside (£4.2m) and West Yorkshire (£4.02m).

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When asked how the fund will be used to help independent retailers, a Met Police spokesperson said: “We will be asking our officers to work even longer hours through overtime in the short term to increase our presence on the streets even further.”  

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Merseyside Police chief constable Andy Cooke added: “It will mean additional patrols at key times and increased visibility to keep communities safe and put violent criminals on the back foot.

“We have also seen a massive increase in the number of stop searches carried out by our officers across Merseyside.” 

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