Special police award for Oswestry's British Ironwork Centre
Oswestry's British Ironwork Centre has been presented with an award for its awareness work around knife crime and creating a special memorial monument to recognise UK police dogs
The Centre and chairman Clive Knowles are most known for the Knife Angel, but have raised awareness in a number of ways.
One is by created the police dogs monument, and on Friday West Mercia's deputy police and crime commissioner Tracey Onslow and Deputy Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman visited the centre to present Mr Knowles with an award.
Over the last five years, the centre has supported the force through various campaigns and amnesties, including the ‘Save a Life, Surrender Your Knife’ campaign whereby knife bins were created and distributed, free of charge, across police constabularies all over the UK.
Through this, the centre has allowed the force to collect a large number of blades, helping to make a positive movement towards alleviating our streets from knife related crime.
The Ironwork Centre has recently undertaken the responsibility to create a special memorial monument to recognise our UK police dogs.
The memorial will be created from apprehended knives and decommissioned guns as well as objects that relate to the lives of these incredible creatures, such as dog bowls and whistles.
Message
Once completed, the memorial is set to be positioned outside the West Mercia Police Headquarters in Worcestershire, where it will honour and celebrate the lives of every police service dog in the UK, and beyond.
Deputy Chief Constable Blakeman, said: "The team at The British Ironwork Centre are valued community partners who have worked with us to raise awareness of knife crime. I am in no doubt that the ‘Knife Angel’ has helped to bring this message to the forefront of people’s minds.
"I am therefore thrilled that the Ironworks are working with us on another project that will recognise and honour the bravery and loyalty of our police dogs whom we regard very much as our colleagues.
"The Ironworks' generosity has meant we have been able to commission this work free of charge and I am grateful to them for their contribution in raising the profile of important areas in such an impactful way."
