Liverpool's mayor has blamed the city's "desperate" knife crime and gang problem on government cuts, calling for a new 10-year action plan to solve it.
Major Joe Anderson says there is no "quick fix" to the crisis, but that it's in "clear correlation" with cuts of 63% by the Tory government - the equivalent of £436m a year.
It was reported earlier this week that knife crime in Liverpool rose by nearly a third in 2018, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.
Southport Debenhams among 22 stores to close
At Liverpool City Council 's cabinet meeting on Friday, Mayor Anderson called for a "whole-city approach", or a "generational bond" involving both local and national government, and various sectors working with the police to tackle the problem.
He said a big part of it would be intervening early enough to give "different options" to young people affected by poverty and "on the verge of exclusion" - a "key driver" for them getting involved in criminality.
It would mean introducing more vocational training and qualifications, in the hope of offering positive futures, opportunities and careers to the city's young people, with strong links between local government, businesses and employers "key to this".
Mayor Anderson said: "There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that funding restrictions have driven up violence and weapon crime to the levels we are seeing today.
Liverpool set for washout weekend as Met Office issues yellow weather warning
"We can't 'arrest ourselves' out of this. This work will take time to come to fruition. A government only interested in quick measures will never succeed in this battle. We cannot depend on short-term funding horizons to fix a generational issue.
What happened when the ECHO went out in Liverpool with police hitting gun crime:
"It's not just a police issue. It would mean local government, national government and all sectors working together and joined up with police to tackle this issue.
"The blame has to be on central government. We want - we need to work together to solve this problem - but all of our spare capacity has been cut."
He wants the government to announce a "generational bond" of 10 or 20 years' fixed funding to allow the city to "make a real difference".
With the cuts "severe", Mayor Anderson said it was "absolutely impossible" to sustain levels of support and intervention previously in place.
He added: "Cuts to social services have meant that vulnerable young people who would have originally been helped are being driven towards crime.
"Interventions that were in place for kids expelled from school have been affected as have community centres and outreach services. The reality is these kids fall through the net and are then targeted by gangs with the promise of ‘being someone’ and carrying a knife becomes a way of life.
Knifeman sent packing by shopkeeper in botched robbery
"We’re all stretched to the limit and the government expect us to keep our communities safe on the cheap, it just can’t be done. It is a false economy - because what happens when these vulnerable kids go down the route of crime? They become criminals, they are unemployable, they go to prison and finally land in the benefits system.
"A cycle begins that is going to cost a hell of a lot more than if the provision had been there in the first place to support them on a better path."
The Mayor said the council was "well aware" the government isn't going to help, meaning the authority having to innovate and find new ways of working.
He added: "I ask the decision-makers of this country with the hands wrapped around their budgets to imagine what it must be like to be one of those parents who receives that knock on the door. The knock that reveals two policemen standing there telling them their child has been stabbed.
"There is no price on the lives that are being lost and the lives that are being ruined. We all need to work together and act quickly to do all we can to stem this crisis."
He made a similar speech at the National Combating Gangs, Violence and Weapon Crime Conference in Manchester on Thursday.
He added: "We can’t lose any more lives to knife crime in our city. We’ll continue to do all we can to tackle it, but until the government wakes up to this crisis, I don’t hold out much hope."
