Speaking to The Guardian, Andrea Simon, the director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, called the scheme a “sticking plaster solution” that is “symptomatic of an increasingly unequal society… [where] women can’t move around as they want to without taking additional safety measures.”

Simon continued: “The government’s priority should be funding measures that prevent and address harmful male behaviour. We want to see just as many schemes that actually target behaviour of perpetrators… because so many of these men are known to the police already.”

And appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today show this morning, Jamie Klinger, co-founder of the campaign group Reclaim These Streets, called the idea “impractical”.

“We all text people when we get home – we’ve been doing that since we got mobile phones – and instead of spending £50m on this new fandangled idea which is really an old idea, 999 needs to work for us,” Klinger said. “We need to look at the problem – we need to look at male violence at the hands of men.”

Online, women have also been responding to the 888 scheme, sharing their fears that the new service would require them to change their behaviour and be used to blame women for not taking enough steps to keep themselves safe.

Women’s safety: the proposed 888 service to protect women walking home has been met with criticism online