Salisbury organisations making the city a safer place
Over 30 organisations are offering their support
Over 30 organisations in Salisbury are opening their doors to people in the city who feel vulnerable.
The Safe Places scheme, launched by Safer and Supportive Salisbury (SASS), allows people in distress to find safety and get help from people in the city.
Participating organisations have a sticker in their window, meaning people who might be lost or being followed, for example, can quickly identify a location that can help them.
There's also an app that lets people find their closest safe place and can call the police on 101 if they're not close enough to one of the venues.
Lizz Batten from SASS said help is available at all times in Salisbury.
"We're lucky in Salisbury and having a 24/7 safe place at the White Hart. So even if it's the early hours of the morning, there'll always be a night Porter there who will open the door and say, come on in, let me help you, what can I do?"
If someone feels they're being followed in the city, the combination of the app and window stickers means there's a deterrent and a the possibility of dealing with a stalking or harassment case.
Lizz told us all the organisations involved are on the look-out for behaviour that could suggest stalking, while CCTV cameras across the city can help police identify offences.
She added: "The beauty of our scheme is that we have gone to different places, we've tried not to do too many shops next door to each other. So there's a bit of a gap between each of our safe places, we've got some in some of the outer reaches of the city as well as in the city centre."
A community working together
We spoke to three organisations involved in the scheme, Fisherton Mill, Salisbury Playhouse and Salisbury Information Centre.
Managing Director at Fisherton Mill, Deborah Fox, said its a way of quickly signposting people to help they need.
"It just is an added level of reassurance that you're not going to. Jump out of the frying pan and into the fire by going into somewhere that perhaps isn't gonna be helpful."
She and her colleagues recently supported a man who'd almost been hit by a car after falling into the road.
The man was aided by staff there for an hour until an ambulance arrived to take him to hospital.
"It's all about just the community chipping in," Deborah said.
Jenny Davies from Wiltshire Creative and says they're proud to be able to offer help to the community.
"Our venues are part of our community," she said.
She added: "They're open to anybody and we're really proud to be a safe space that people can feel welcome and warm and just we're just available for them with whenever they might need a little bit of extra support when they're out and about."
Salisbury Information Centre's Vicky Goodwright said it's crucial there's help available across the community.
"There are people with all sorts of problems, sometimes they're visible, sometimes they're not visible, we deal with all sorts of people," she said.
Staff at the centre were able to help a person living with dementia who had come in having forgotten which care home they lived in.
But with the help of the staff at the information centre, they were able to call a taxi having contacted the care home the person lived at, safely returning them home.