Thursday, December 4, 2025
623 knives were recovered by Lancashire Police from surrender bins as part of Sceptre, a national knife crime awareness week. In addition, three were recovered from individuals during stop searches.
Between Monday 17th – Sunday 23rd November 2025, officers and staff in Lancashire’s West Division, which covers Blackpool, Fylde, Wyre and Lancaster, carried out a range of both operational and proactive engagement work throughout the week.
Operationally, Lancashire Police:
· Undertook 32 test purchases in conjunction with Lancashire’s Trading Standards team.
· Teamed up with British Transport Police to deploy a knife arch on two consecutive nights at Blackpool North Train Station, one of which also had a drug dog present.
· Visited 14 schools across the week, to deliver important inputs on knife crime.
In addition to operational activity, proactive engagement was carried out in communities. These included a Champions Young Peoples event at Morecambe Football Club, youth outreach work in semi-rural areas of Wyre, four parent and carer events were attended in Family Hubs across the division with ED Navigators and a workshop was held specifically aimed at young females and their experiences/knowledge of knife crime.
Sergeant Dan Whitaker from Lancashire’s Violence Reduction Network said: “Tackling knife crime remains one of our top priorities. This operation demonstrates our commitment to keeping communities safe by removing dangerous weapons from our streets and targeting those who carry them.
“Officers work year-round to reduce knife crime and educate communities on the dangers of carrying a knife through operations and educational inputs to our young people. Weeks of action such as Sceptre allow us to highlight this work and show our communities how we are working to reduce knife crime in their area”
You can find your nearest knife bin here - Knife Bin Locations - Lancashire Violence Reduction Network