Street Drinking on the Rise

Back in July I wrote about the plans for a street drinking ban in Southwark. At the time I said that it wasn't a problem in my ward, but that unlike the Dulwich Tories I didn't want Nunhead excluded in case it became a problem.

Well, I'm very glad I did that now. Since July dealing with nuisance street drinkers has become one of the top priorities for our local Safer Neighbourhood Police Team. Particular problems are around two supported housing units, one on Kirkwood Rd and the other near Queens Road Station. The housing is meant to be for people who have recovered from alcohol/drug addiction problems and are housed in these units temporarily whilst they look for long term accomadation. These haven't been a major problem in the past but since this summer I've had loads of complaints about men hanging around drinking on the streets outside the units and harrassing passers-by.

Obviously alcohol abuse is a complex problem and the new street drinking ban is not going to solve the problem on it's own, but it does give the police extra powers to simply confiscate and pour away alcohol if they find people who are drinking on the street and the police think are likely to cause a nuisance. Our police team seem pretty pleased with this as it's a simple and straight forward measure.

My only real disappointment with the measure is that the local council wardens aren't going to be allowed to use it. Apparently the council has a new roving team of 8 super council wardens who will be able to confiscate alcohol, but they have to cover the whole borough. I don't know why the council doesn't empower all the wardens and it does make me think that Lambeth Council's new Labour administration may be right to be thinking of replacing their wardens with extra PCSOs (Police Community Support Officers) - the PCSOs have similar and sometimes more powers than the wardens, they work as part of the police team so there is no extra layer of management costs and I think as they look almost exactly like police officers having them patrolling the streets would be much more effective for reducing crime.

Anyway, back to the street drinking. Following a period where all the agencies (police, wardens, housing department) were aware of the problem but all working seperately on it, I've now got them to hold some joint meetings with the company that manages the housing units and the team in the council that pays for the unit and assigns people to live there. I'm not sure yet whether the underlying problem is poor management at the unit or the council placing people there who need more support than the unit is able to give, but I hope a combination of enforcement by the police and the project team looking at the underlying issues will mean we don't see such major problems next summer.

By the way, one of the innovations with the new Safer Neighbourhood Police Teams is that we have regular meetings with the police team, councillors and residents to discuss what the local crime and anti-social behaviour problems are and to agree priorities for the team for the next month. So if there are problems in your area please do let me know and I'll make sure the police know about them.