KENT Police Authority and Kent County Council have donated £24,000 to the independent charity Kent Crimestoppers.

Ann Barnes, chair of the KPA and KCC's Mike Hill, met with the chair of Kent Crimestoppers to hand over the funds on Tuesday.

Kent Crimestoppers aims to help identify, prevent, solve and reduce crime by feeding information on crimes reported anonymously to Kent Police.

The organisation relies on around 600 volunteers to help take calls and provide community safety advice. In the last year alone some 1,726 calls were made from around the county.

Mrs Barnes said: "We hope this extra money will help the charity to grow and fund further initiatives and I'm sure taxpayers will agree this is value for money.

"Crimestoppers really does play a vital role in allowing people to come forward without fear of exposure or retribution and we have to remember that each phone call adds valuable information to police investigations."

Cllr Hill, KCC Cabinet member for community services, said: "Kent Crimestoppers are a major player in their field of helping to solve crime.

"Their work is very reliant on grants of this nature to survive and I'm confident the funds will go a long way to aid their future work."

Ian Cooling, chair of Kent Crimestoppers, added: "This latest grant will help us to continue to develop our work against crime across the county."