A MULTIMILLION pound initiative to cut the impact of crime on the business community of North and East Yorkshire has been delayed until funding can be sorted out.

The successful Business Crime Reduction Centre based in Sheffield, which was hoping to extend its activities from South Yorkshire to the whole of the county by July, has put the project on hold for a couple of months until the funding comes through.

The Centre was set up in 2008 by the charity People United Against Crime, backed by the now-abolished Yorkshire Forward Regional Development Agency with matched funding from the European Regional Development Fund.

But with the demise of Yorkshire Forward the centre is now forced to seek other sources to work with the European funding to raise the £4.2 million necessary to do its job giving impartial advice to tackle the business criminals in the rest of the county.

David Ransom, chief executive of People United Against Crime, said: “There are other possible funding sources which I am not divulging at this stage. But any delay means that it is potentially easier for criminals to operate against businesses.”

In the three years since the centre was established, it has helped more than 1,300 small to medium-sized businesses to reduce crime in the South Yorkshire Police area, safeguarding nearly 500 jobs.

Now the plan is to study North Yorkshire’s crime figures and work with its businesses, victims and other organisations to find ways of tackling crime head on, be it shoplifting, fraud, robbery, burglary, metal theft, fleeing without paying or cyber crime.

One of Mr Ransom’s concerns is that there will be a surge in the business crime graph during this economic downturn – a surge first detected in 2009 when the recession hit South Yorkshire. Now he fears that the graph peak could be replicated in North Yorkshire.

Should the project go ahead in North Yorkshire the centre’s business security advisers will give North Yorkshire firms a free security “health check” on their premises, on staff policies and on their ICT systems to ensure that they are not being abused by cyber criminals.