Knife robberies have risen in Greater Manchester despite the creation of a special taskforce set up to combat the problem.
The rise is relatively modest at 4%, but other areas considered knife robbery “hotspots” saw reductions, including a 25% drop in the West Midlands.
The government announced the taskforce following a steep rise in knife crime in seven police force areas, and the scheme has led to a 6% drop nationally since July 2024.
Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester, Kate Green, said the continued rise in region was related mostly to business robberies, and that “personal robberies” were coming down.
Greater Manchester Police has recorded 1,345 knife-enabled robberies in the past 12 months, up from 1,288 recorded between July 2023 and June 2024.
Ms Green said the figures showed the increase in robberies was also “slowing down”.
“There’s certainly much more to do,” she said.
“It’s why we have a whole lot of initiatives running over this summer, policing the hot spots, stop and search, stopping vehicles and identifying the habitual knife carriers.”
The statistics include robberies involving the threat of a knife even if a blade is not actually seen by the victim.
Moss Side based anti-knife crime campaigner and youth worker Kemoy Walker, whose nephew Prince Walker-Ayeni was stabbed to death aged 17 in April last year, said young people believed “boredom” was a factor in some offending.
He told Radio Manchester: “Young people have called out for diversionary activities because what they’re saying is the reason why a lot of these things are happening in the community is because they’re bored and they’ve got nothing to do.
“So as youth workers we’ve come up with a bit of a plan to try and look at what we can do to support the young people and that’s what we’re doing locally.”
Between July 2023 and June 2024, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, the West Midlands, Avon and Somerset, the Metropolitan Police and the British Transport Police areas accounted for 70% of knife robberies nationally.
Taskforces set up in those areas in July 2024 used tactics including drones, knife arches and detection dogs, with the seven forces also increasing visible patrols and the number of plain clothes officers on the streets.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “When we came to office, knife-enabled robbery was increasing at a concerning rate.
“We have now started to drive numbers of those offences down through the work of our dedicated taskforces, and as a result, we have also seen the first small reduction in overall knife crime for four years.”
