Agenda item

Subject to the required notice being given, Members of the Council can ask questions of the Chairman of the Council, the Leader of the Council, Portfolio Holders or Chairmen of Committees or Sub-Committees.

The time allocated for receiving and disposing of questions shall be a maximum of 45 minutes. Any question not disposed of at the end of this time shall be the subject of a written response, copied to all Members unless withdrawn by the questioner.

One question has been received, on notice, from a Member.

Subject to the required notice being given, Members of the Council could ask questions of the Chairman of the Council, the Leader of the Council, Portfolio Holders or Chairmen of Committees or Sub-Committees.

One question had been submitted as set out below:

Question

From Councillor Griffiths to Councillor McWilliams, Portfolio Holder for Health and Education:

“A number of St James’ residents have expressed concern over the number of drunks in Clacton   town centre, who by their general poor behaviour and foul language are creating an unpleasant environment for residents and visitors.

 
Could the Portfolio Holder tell us, what action they intend to take, along with other  partner  agencies,  to combat this problem,  and  how they intend  to  create a more pleasant environment for those visiting Clacton Town Centre?”

Councillor McWilliams replied along the following lines:-

“I do understand that the behaviour of some of those that frequent Clacton Town Centre can be distressing for some residents and visitors to the Town and that people want to see positive actions taken to limit the visibility of drinkers in the Town.

However, the powers that we have are around dealing with anti-social behaviour. So whilst someone may not act, dress or behave in a way that meets our own standards we need to distinguish between true anti-social behaviour and actions where other support, advice or guidance is needed to support a vulnerable person.

With this in mind there are a number of actions that we are taking through the Community Safety Partnership.

There is a Public Spaces Protection Order in place for Clacton Town Centre. I would like to make it clear that this does not make the Town Centre an alcohol ban area. The Order is about preventing anti-social behaviour not about stopping people drinking. If we made the PSPO a drinking ban that would prevent everyone drinking including those who might want a glass of wine with their picnic on the beach or just have one can of beer on a sunny day on Christmas Tree Island. However, the Order does allow us to act where there is begging, loitering or wholly unreasonable behaviour. If the unreasonable behaviour is clearly caused by drinking then our officers can ask someone to stop drinking or to hand over alcohol.

We do have officers that patrol in the Town Centre and are accredited to issue Fixed Penalty Notices where ASB is being committed. However, the primary role of these officers is to undertake enforcement on our off street car parks and I do accept that this can limit the effectiveness in tackling ASB in the Town. I am pleased therefore to advise Members that a post has recently been agreed for an Anti-Social Behaviour Patrol Officer that is dedicated to the Town Centre. It is hoped that funding for this will be approved in the budget to allow us to have someone in post and up to speed before Easter next year. Initially this officer would be based in Clacton but could be used to patrol other Towns in the District. The Police have a PCSO who is dedicated to Clacton Town Centre and it will be beneficial for this officer and ours to work together. We do work well with the Police. The jointly funded Operation Spider over the Summer reduced ASB incidents by 29%. I think it is important to remember that not all ASB is down to the street drinkers and we should retain a focus on all ASB incidents that, although maybe not so visible, can be much more harmful than street drinking. My officers are also investigating whether it would be feasible to provide a designated area for street drinkers. These have worked in other areas and we are looking into this.

As I said we do also have a range of actions that look to support street drinkers away from alcohol. These are by their nature longer term measures but complement the pure enforcement. We are working with the Restorative Justice Hub to undertake a mediation process including partner agencies, businesses and the drinkers themselves. This approach worked particularly well in Southend. We also have a Street Drinkers Working Group that has partner agencies including Open Road sitting on it. Phoenix Futures are actively engaging with the street drinkers trying to provide some support mechanisms for them

We have looked at whether CCTV can provide a solution to dealing with street drinkers. Typically TDC uses CCTV to passively monitor our streets and action is taken when directed by the police or other enforcement agencies. We cannot watch a group of people just because they are drinking in the streets, this is not a crime. If there is anti-social behaviour then that is a different matter, but we would still need the police to attend or report the incident ourselves. An alternative to monitoring the drinkers themselves is to target the source of the alcohol. It is an offence for an off license to sell alcohol to someone who is obviously intoxicated. We have done these sorts of operations in the past but their success relies on having a resource to monitor the cameras constantly or on getting intelligence that someone obviously drunk has purchased alcohol. I have asked officers to look into the resources that would be required to use CCTV to produce evidence that could result in the suspension or revoking of an alcohol licence where that licence has been breached.

We all want Clacton to be a welcoming and enjoyable place to live in and visit and groups of street drinkers that are shabbily dressed, swearing and generally unkempt do not enhance that. I have set out a number of actions that we are taking with partners to address this. Where enforcement is merited then we absolutely should be using our powers to issue FPNs but this alone does not necessarily remove the problem. It just moves it on. So we are also taking steps to try to address the issue in the longer term.”