Action Needed to Tackle Street Drinking in Shirley Road

In Howard Road with a huge pile of beer cans - one example of evidence of street drinking 

I am calling for tough new licencing rules to be brought in to restrict further off licences and shops selling alcohol on Shirley Road and Shirley High St and the roads nearby. 

I recently told the Southern Daily Echo: "The pubs are well managed in the area but there are so many off licences there and we don’t need any more. It’s intimidating when you walk down the road and see people drinking beer in the streets from early in the morning until late at night and urinating in the alleyways and it brings the area down."

I am asking that the Police and the City Council's licencing team look at the introduction of a new 'Cumulative Impact Licencing Policy' which will make it much harder for new off licences to be approved and for existing ones to extend their operating hours. 

I will put the request to a meeting of the city's Safe City Partnership later this month. I am also calling on the police to use their powers to confiscate alcohol from those seen drinking in the street.  

Update 21/04/13: I am attending the Safer City Partnership on 25th April to present my concerns to the Police, the City Council and other local partners.

No Cold Calling Zones

Launch of No Cold Calling Zones with North East Bassett Residents Association

Southampton Conservatives are setting up No Cold Calling Zones in the city where residents associations want them.

I am really pleased by number of residents associations in the Freemantle Ward which are in the process of setting them up.

An area with a No Cold Calling Zone has signs on lamp posts and stickers in residents’ windows which aim to discourage nuisance callers and to give residents the confidence to turn unwanted visitors away. Hampshire Constabulary are supporting the scheme and they have advised that they are helpful in reducing burglary in the area.

More information can be found HERE, and by emailing: NCCZ@southampton.gov.uk

No Cold Calling Zones are part of a package of Community Safety policies announced by local Conservatives as we approach the local elections next month. Our full manifesto and other Community Safety policies can be found HERE.

Tackling Anti Social Behaviour in Freemantle

The City Council has received a number of complaints from residents regarding street drinking and associated anti-social behaviour in Shirley Road.

Southampton City Council and the Police have taken a range of actions to tackle anti-social behaviour in the area. Having been informed of the problems, this is what the council did:

- Increased police patrols in the area and used powers to seize alcohol.
- Identified those responsible for the problems and warned them about their behaviour.
- Removed a bench they were using a place to congregate.
- Visited local off licences and asked them not to serve to the main instigators of the problems in the area.

The council will continue to monitor the situation and take further action to deal with any further concerns that are raised.

If you have any questions about what has been done or would like to speak to someone about this or any other issues that are affecting you, please do not hesitate to contact us in the Safer Communities Team on 023 8083 2013.

To report a new or un-related problem of anti-social behaviour:

Call: 0845 045 45 45 Hampshire Constabulary
101 Non-emergency Police number

Go online: www.southampton.gov.uk
www.hampshire.police.uk

Mountbatten Way CREW

My Colleague, Cllr Brian Parnell in Saxon Road

A major clear up of Mountbatten Way and nearby roads started today as part of Crime Reduction and Environment Week in Freemantle.

Offenders under the Community Payback scheme are working to tidy up rubbish that had been fly tipped in the area. Work will also include cutting back bushes, filling pot holes, erecting neighbourhood watch signs.

Lighting repairs on the bridge have been reported to Network Rail.

The clear up follows a request by the local neighbourhood watch for Saxon Road the Cracknore Road.

Tackling Anti Social Behaviour in Freemantle

Councillors Brian Parnell and Jeremy Moulton in Shirley Road

Your local councillors have been working with the City Council, the Police and the Probation Service to tackle fly tipping and anti social behaviour in the cutways between Stafford Road and the back of Poveys Dance Centre in Shirley Road.

Community Payback has been used to clear the litter. Signs in both Polish and English have been put up to discourage drinking. The council will also be consulting local people about whether some routes should be blocked off with gates, to discourage congregations of drinkers.

Action to Tackle Alcohol Fuelled Crime

Southampton City Council has backed calls by the police to curb excesses of late night drinking in the centre of town.

On Wednesday 13th May the Council agreed a new 'Cumulative Impact' licensing policy for London Road, Bedford Place, Bevois Valley and the city centre. The effect will be to make it harder for new licences for pubs and clubs to be awarded.

The policy is a new tool that will help the City Council's Licensing Panel to assess extensions to licensing hours for premises or new applications by considering the potential adverse impact on the area. The onus will now be on the applicant for the licence to prove that the new premise won't add to problems associated with late night drinking.

Needless to say that this is not the sole answer to the problem. However, it recognises that Labour's grand plan to liberalise licensing laws has been a failure. We can now see that the excessive drinking culture in this country has simply got worse with more "fuel" to fan the fires.

The council has also agreed to close Above Bar Street to vehicles between 10pm and 4am on Fridays and Saturdays. This has received the backing of the police who feel that it will cut down on incidents of violent disorder by allowing late night drinkers more space as they come out of pubs, avoiding too many people being packed onto the pavements. The road closure will initially be a three month trial but could be made permanent if it works.

Tackling Crime and Anti Social Behaviour

I attended two very different meetings last week on crime and anti social behaviour.

The first was on Tuesday and was hosted by my opponent at the next General Election, Labour MP Alan Whitehead. The meeting was to highlight the launch of his new guide to anti social behaviour and peoples' rights and the law. It was held at the Central Baptist Church in Devonshire Road. The book is very useful and can be downloaded on his website. The meeting was with all the different residents' associations in the west of the city and I went along with a number of councillor colleagues to hear peoples' concerns.

It was a rather negative meeting and I was struck at just how few ideas the Labour Government and Labour locally have to tackle crime. Unfortunately they are resorting to the old argument that simply more laws are needed. Since this government came to power there have been more new offences created than the number of days they have been in office! Yet crime is still a huge issue for local people and there are no positive solutions coming forward.

The second meeting was on Wednesday, at Freemantle Infant School in Mansion Road. This was a meeting with the local beat police, the fire and rescue service and all the new neighbourhood watches in the Freemantle and Shirley area.

It was an extremely positive meeting and I am really encouraged by the excellent work that the police are doing in the area. In recent months dozens of new neighbourhood watches have been set up. At the meeting we heard some of the things the police have been doing recently:

- Extra police patrols to tackle the problem of robberies along Shirley High Street.
- Cycling proficiency work in schools to tackle the problem of bicycles being ridden on the pavements.
- Trying to reduce speeding traffic along Hill Lane.
- Tackling crime hotspots in Albany Road and Shirley Towers.
- Recent arrests of drug dealers.
- Combined police/ PCSO / special constable patrols in the local parks and around the pubs at closing time.

Just as there was a stark contrast between my two meetings there is a stark contrast between Labour, who seem to have run out of steam and the Conservatives who on the other have a range of positive measures to make a real difference:

Nationally:
1. We are looking at having elected police sheriffs to bring democratic accountability to the police.
2. We will introduce honesty in sentencing so courts set a minimum and a maximum period of incarceration.
3. We will replace automatic release with earned release.
4. We will make community sentences tough and effective, and withdraw benefits for those who don’t attend.
5. We will enforce Drug Rehabilitation Requirements.
6. Offenders will compensate victims through a Victims’ Fund. Those serving custodial sentences will pay into the Fund through work in prison.
7. Prison and Rehabilitation Trusts and private sector prisons will be paid by results - with a premium awarded if the offender is not re convicted within two years.
8. We will accelerate the deportation of foreign national prisoners.
9. We will increase prison capacity by more than 5,000 places over and above Labour’s plans, to end overcrowding by 2016.
10. We will cut the paper work and bureaucracy which is tying the hands of police officers.

Locally:
1. We are encouraging more Southampton people to sign up as special police constables to help patrol the city streets. We seeking Home Office approval allow us to scrap council tax for local people who sign up.
2. We are improving lighting in the city and will replace thousands of old street lights in Southampton in the next few years. We are also improving lighting in city centre parks as a priority.
3. We are investigating whether mobile wireless CCTV could be mounted on new street lights, so cameras can be installed in crime hotspots.
4. We are supporting the 101 anti social behaviour number after the Government withdrew its funding.
5. We are looking at how we can better organise the council's uniformed officers, city patrol and wardens and how to better co-ordinate activities with the police.
6. We are looking at opening hours and numbers of pubs and clubs in the city.
7. We have launched an after schools sports scheme to get more youngsters playing sports.
8. We are installing measures to protect areas of open space around the city from traveller incursions.
9. We are tackling the problem of dangerously parked and untaxed cars.
10. We are investing in anti crime measures on our estates including rolling out a new concierge system in the tower blocks.

Tackling Crime in Southampton

Crime is a huge problem in Southampton and one of biggest concerns of local people. In addition so called "anti social behaviour" increasingly is a blight on the lives of local people.

The problem has got much worse under Labour and their policies are failing the city.

Labour's Asbos are worn as a batch of pride by young thugs and Dispersal Orders simply move the problem of anti social behaviour from one road or neighbourhood to the next.

Labour have talked tough on crime but they have failed utterly to deliver.
The police are drowning in bureaucracy and paperwork and are not allowed to get on and do their jobs effectively. They are straight jacketed by centrally imposed targets which get in the way of delivering local priorities.

We need more police on the streets. Today only 1 in 59 policemen are actually on the beat. This is a shocking statistic. Locally Southampton's Conservative Councillors want to do all we can to support the police. We have proposed scraping council tax for people that become special constables. In other areas this has helped encourage more people to sign up as specials. If we could recruit an extra 50 or 100 specials in Southampton it would make a big difference. It would also show that we value and respect local people who come forward to help make their communities safer.

We need much greater accountability for the police. Nationally Conservative Party has advocated bringing the police under direct local democratic control. This is something Southampton's Conservatives are very keen on and we believe that we could really improve things if we had the police focusing on local priorities rather than central government targets.

Last year local Conservative councillors fought very hard for the council to take seriously the problem of attacks in the city centre parks. We had to fight tooth and nail to get money for extra lighting but after a long campaign we had some success.

Improving street lighting around the city would make a difference to city safety or certainly perceptions of safety. Thousands of the councils streetlights need replacing and the council is aiming to secure £22m of government PFI money to replace old streetlights. Southampton's

Conservatives backed this and also managed to persuade the council to ensure that its PFI bid included plans for new street lights to have a plug on top of them to allow WiFi CCTV cameras to be installed. This would mean in thousands of locations around the city CCTV could be put in place quickly and cheaply should there be a local need.

We of course need stronger sentencing and there needs to be a real deterrent to would be criminals. However we need to do much more than simply send people to prison for longer.

We should be supporting families in the city, especially those families that have difficulties such as drink or drug problems. We were very pleased that through our positive involvement in this year's budget setting meeting for the city that we were able to keep open all family centres in the city. These centres, in Bitterne, St Marys and Lordshill support families which have serious problems such as domestic violence and drink and drugs and ensure the safety and well being of children in the city. Labour planned to axe £333,000 from the budget for this service. We felt that this would have had a terrible impact in the city and were pleased that we prevented it.

Southampton has been made a Respect Agenda city by the Government. A small amount of additional government money has been made available to the council and this is to be spent on a "super nanny" who will help to improve parenting skills in the city. There is a real irony in that we are receiving this money from the Labour government whilst at the same time local Labour councillors are trying to close down one of the very centres in which this new person will based!

Conservatives believe that we need to provide good leisure facilities for young people and ensure that there are things for them to do. That is one reason why we fought against Labour plans to try and close Oaklands Swimming Pool.

The Council needs to be tough on anti social behaviour. It seems as though it is happy to fine people perceived as an easy target for minor misdemeanours but is reluctant to peruse people who might not pay up.
Where council has leverage such as when dealing with council tenants it should make it clear that unless decent standards of behaviour are adhered to, tenants will be evicted.

RESPECT Initiative Is All Spin!

I was not suprised to read in tonight's Daily Echo that only one resident bothered to turn up for the Southampton's RESPECT meeting in Millbrook. People in Southampton are right to be sceptical.

Southampton has been chosen as one of the areas where the Government is investing money in combating anti social behaviour under it's so called RESPECT initiative.

The Government has done an amazing job at marketing the Respect campaign. In the local Echo there have been numerous stories highlighting the investment of Government money. It has secured television and radio coverage and Labour politicans have lined up to say how wonderful it is. It was even the subject of a question in last Wednesday's Council meeting at the Civic Centre.

The reality however is rather different to the spin. Southampton City Council is getting £50k to pay for a super nanny. This is a tiny sum of money which I doubt will have any real impact on crime in the City. Bear in mind Southampton City Council spends over a £1m a day!

Typically the extra money will only last for a couple of years and then it will be withdrawn.

Maybe I am wrong and a £50k super nanny is the answer to dealing with low level crime in the City. If this is the case though I wish someone had mentioned it before. If someone had told me a few years ago that £50k is what it takes to sort out the scourge of anti social behaviour in the city I would have gladly supported the Council spending the money. Some how I expect it isn't answer!