A COMMUNITY education project which provides older residents with the knowledge they need to protect themselves against doorstep crime, scams and frauds is set to expand across West Yorkshire – thanks to Lottery funding worth £444,589.

The Scams and Frauds Education for Residents project in Wakefield is one of 11 projects in the region sharing almost £3.7 million from the Big Lottery Fund’s Reaching Communities programme.

The funding means Wakefield Metropolitan District Council can continue the scheme for a further three years and expand it to all five districts of West Yorkshire: Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield.

Intelligence-gathering through ‘Scam Bins’ – 10 giant yellow post boxes situated in community anchors for local people to bin their scam mail – has allowed the project to identify specific scams and fraudsters.

Interactive workshops will be delivered to 15,000 older people. Since November 2012, the programme has already reached more than 4,300 older people and 1,100 professionals with educational and prevention workshops.