Council Assembly 4 - Alcohol Control Zone
At Council Assembly we decided to designate the majority of the borough as an Alcohol Control Zone.
The designation gives police additional powers to crack down on street drinkers who are causing a nuisence.
It's not about stopping people from having a picnic in the park - it's about getting rid of groups of drunks who persistenting hang around drinking cans of Special Brew in places like Camberwell Green and on Coldharbour Lane. It's a really big problem in Camberwell. People get harrassed by drunks at all times of the day and they make the park at Camberwell Green almost unusable.
The Labour councillors in Camberwell have been campaigning for a full street drinking ban for SE5 . For some reason the LibDems rejected this idea and instead decided they wanted a borough-wide control zone. I know the Camberwell councillors and residents are concerned that this will dilute the policing of the zone in Camberwell, but it's better than nothing so we voted in favour of it.*
From a Nunhead perspective, as far as I'm aware street drinkers are not really a problem. However, we were warned that if we weren't in the zone then we might find that drinkers moved from the current hotspots into areas that weren't covered, so better to be in than out.
One thing that did concern me was the council's plan to put up 500 full colour foamex signs around the borough. I think we can do without a load more plastic signs around Nunhead, particularly if they are in the nasty shade of orange the council's marketing people have decided to allocate to the area.
So my contribution to the debate was to inform the Executive Member for Community Safety that whilst I was happy for Nunhead to be included in the zone, as we don't have a problem at the moment we really don't need any ugly orange signs.
He seemed to take my point, but I'll be keeping an eye out. Please let me know if you spot any.
* NB As well as the street drinking ban, the Camberwell councillors are also campaigning for more and better support services for the drinkers and controls on the sale of strong alcohol in the area.
Labels: anti-social behaviour, police, street drinkers
posted by Fiona on Saturday, July 01, 2006
3 comments
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3 Comments:
"* NB As well as the street drinking ban, the Camberwell councillors are also campaigning for more and better support services for the drinkers and controls on the sale of strong alcohol in the area."
Fiona, I'm a little intrigued if this is the case, why all three Labour councillors on the Planning Committee voted in favour of extending the licensing hours for Wetherspoons in the Elephant & Castle. They can now sell alcohol from 9.00am to 11.30pm.
This was despite many objections and complaints to the application from local residents and from the Salvation Army - who expressed concern that Wetherspoons were already selling alcohol at 9.00am despite their license beginning at 11.00am and that this was having a very negative impact on people with alcohol problems in the area.
I'm sending this comment as someone who is very concerned by recent statistics on alcohol misuse and it's effect on health issued by the Information Centre for Health and Social Care this week.
I welcome support for better services for those with alcohol problems, but consider it unhelpful if your colleagues then vote inconsistently.
Helen
I know you're a new councillor, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you haven't received full training in these issues.
Key points
Licensing decisions are quasi-judicial - just like planning.
Licensing decisions must be consistent with national legislation and local policy.
If the applicant believes that the licensing committee takes a decision that is not consistent with the council's licensing policy they may appeal against the decision.
If the courts decide that the licensing committee took a that is not consistent with the counci's licensing policy they may overturn the council's decision and this can cost the council (and thus the tax payer) a lot of money.
Licensing committee hearings must not be whipped by political parties.
Members of licensing committee must take decisions based on the council's licensing policy not their own party's policies.
So if you don't like the decision of a licensing hearing you probably ought to focus on the licensing policies (both national and local) rather than attacking individual members of the committee. Afterall, I'm sure I could find just as many examples of LibDem members voting for unpopular applications - and that's really not a healthy path for the council to go down.
I have no idea why the members of licensing committee decided to grant this early morning license. I wasn't present at the hearing, I haven't seen the papers and I can't even find any record of it on the Council's website, so I really can't comment on why the decision was taken or if it was or was not consistent with concern for people with alcohol abuse problems.
But what I can say is that when it comes to both licensing and planning the politics (and certainly the party politics) belongs in setting the policies not on individual cases.
As you know I am very concerned about the granting of a license to a lapdancing club. So I'm trying to get the council's policy changed. I'm not attacking the 3 members of licensing committee who granted the license.
Given your stated concern about alcohol misuse I suggest you do something productive about it. Take a look at the council's licensing policy which is now being reviewed. Why not make some suggestions for how it could be improved?
That's really the point of being a councillor - to try to change things for the better.
Fiona, This was the Planning Committee - not the Licensing Committee. It was down to our own individual decision on this case - we were not bound by any particular law or policy to vote one way or another.
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