Trinity Leeds signs up to ‘Ask for Angela’ scheme and welcomes key organisations

The event at Trinity Leeds was held on International Women’s Day and saw public engagement through ‘contact pods’ offering information around community support and services available to women and girls.

The Ask for Angela scheme, led by Leeds City Council and Women Friendly Leeds, is part of the Safer Leeds initiative and was launched in November 2021. It has since grown to 600+ venues across Leeds, spanning night clubs, bars, restaurants, hotels, leisure centres, and continues to expand into other day, evening, and night venues. The scheme means that if anyone feels unsafe and would like assistance, they can ask for ‘Angela’ in one of the participating venues, where staff have been trained to offer discreet help.

Trinity Leeds’ own staff plus many of the bars, restaurants and evening venues at Trinity Leeds are now part of the Ask for Angela scheme, with plans to roll it out to retailers in future.

In addition, the event saw the team promoting the WalkSafe Leeds app – a free, inclusive, nationally available app that offers a local version specific to the city and highlights business who have signed up to Ask for Angela, for use by people, residents, commuters, and visitors if they want to plan safer journeys.

A participating certificate was presented to Trinity Leeds by Councillor Debra Coupar, Leeds City Council's executive member for resources with responsibility for Safer Leeds.

Councillor Coupar said:

“Ensuring women and girls are safe and feel safe in our city is absolutely key to our ambition for Leeds to be the best city. We have been making great strides towards raising awareness of women and girls’ safety and our campaign to end violence against them.

“I am delighted that Trinity Leeds has signed up to the Ask for Angela scheme, it is another significant step in addressing violence, abuse, harassment and inappropriate behaviour towards women and girls in the public realm. I hope that women will feel reassured knowing that there is such a large space in the city centre where they can always go for assistance if they ever feel unsafe.

“I would like to thank all of our partner organisations, including Safer Leeds and West Yorkshire Police, for their complete focus on this as we continue to introduce initiatives that will help keep women and girls safe and included in everything our city has to offer.”

Centre Director at Trinity Leeds, Steven Foster said:

“We’re proud to welcome so many wonderful organisations and inspiring women, giving them the chance to spread awareness of their work in the community and how they provide valuable support for women and girls in Leeds. It’s great to join the Ask for Angela scheme and we hope our involvement will encourage more venues to sign up too.”

ENDS

You can find out more about the WalkSafe app here WalkSafe Leeds

If venues want to sign up to Ask for Angela and be on the WalkSafe app, email: outwithangela@leeds.gov.uk