More than a hundred businesses are being asked to sign up as “safe havens” to help women and girls feel safer when walking through town at night.

Women’s safety organisation #TogetherAsAllies has partnered with Tunbridge Wells MP Mike Martin (Lib Dem) to launch the new project.

The initiative, which starts in May, is asking more than 150 local businesses to become a place where those who might need a bit of support can pop in and shelter for a while.

Firms will show a safe haven sign in their window to indicate they are available to offer help.

This could mean arranging a taxi, letting someone charge their phone, or offering a space for someone to call their emergency contact.

Mr Martin said: “We’ve recognised for a long time in Tunbridge Wells, as everywhere around the country, that women and girls feel less safe than men do, particularly at quiet times or at night.

“This is a fantastic initiative which local businesses can get involved in, where they effectively offer themselves up somewhere as a safe haven.

“If you're walking home at night and you feel less safe, you can pop in, charge your phone, get some advice, and it just offers you a way to break your journey at night.

“I don't think whether you're in an affluent part of the world or a less affluent part of the world that it affects how women and girls feel about, for example, walking home at night or through a quiet part of town.

“This is a problem that we have across the country and around the world.

“But we expect the take-up to be good in Tunbridge Wells because we've got a really great community in town.

“We've got a lot of great businesses, and so we do expect people to respond to the call and offer themselves up to be safe havens and be part of this network.

“We're trying to tackle the problem from lots of different angles but this is the first initiative that we're launching right now. “

#TogetherAsAllies will also offer specialist training to businesses, so staff know how to respond to vulnerable people seeking help, as well as a support pack that signposts to local support services.

Laura Toop, who is also the Tunbridge Wells District chairperson of the Kent Police Independent Advisory Group, founded the organisation.

She said: “It's not just about this town centre. In fact, actually, it's about spreading it as far as we can go.

“If people are stronger in this, in themselves, and are able to talk more openly and honestly to others about how they feel, that is how we can be stronger in ourselves and have greater grounding in order to be able to feel safer.”

Mr Martin has previously urged the government to implement a law that makes it a crime to intentionally cause someone harassment, alarm or distress because of a victim’s sex or presumed sex, which was passed in September 2023.

Before Christmas, he informed Parliament that The Protection from Sex-Based Harassment in Public Act 2023 had been passed but was not enforced because the previous and current government hasn’t passed the relevant statutory instrument to implement the regulations.

He asked the Minister of State for Women and Equalities to update him as to when the Act will come into force and received a letter from the Minister informing him that the Home Office is still working with stakeholders “to make sure all the necessary arrangements are in place … before the offence comes into force”.

It is understood the Act is still not implemented or enforced by the police.