City Beat: Addressing persistent anti-social behaviour
Persistent anti-social behaviour (ASB) can cause misery for local people, which is why tackling it is so important for our Peterborough neighbourhood teams, writes Supt Ben Martin.
One such example was the ongoing issue of ASB linked to car cruising events at the Pleasure Fair Meadow Car Park in Oundle Road.
Although many people attending these events did so responsibly, there were regular complaints from residents about anti-social driving and excessive noise, often late at night.
This was having a significant impact on people living near the car park and resulted in regular calls to police.
To tackle the issue, we worked with Peterborough City Council to introduce a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) at the car park.
This meant that anyone participating in a car meet in the area, or who drove anti-socially, could be issued with a fixed penalty notice or a fine of up to £1,000. Examples of anti-social driving include behaviour such as speeding, revving car engines, doing stunts and playing music excessively loudly.
Following its implementation on 19 July we have issued 13 fixed penalty notices, delivered two further warnings and seized one vehicle.
The success of this order has resulted in a dramatic reduction in issues at the car park and, I’m sure, comes as a relief for local residents after the unacceptable behaviour they have been subjected to.
I’d like to commend our Peterborough South Neighbourhood Policing Team and the local authority for their hard work concerning this issue.
We will continue to monitor the situation and act robustly to any breaches of the order.
Another issue I felt I needed to briefly address in this article is the recent protests we have seen at the Dragonfly Hotel in the city. We have provided a proportionate policing response to these to ensure a safe environment for everyone involved and allow protestors and counter protestors to express their views peacefully.
It’s important that people have the right to protest and express their views, but this must be in a peaceful and respectful way. Our role, as always, is to maintain political neutrality and ensure public safety. I believe we have struck the right balance so far and we have experienced very few issues.
The neighbourhood policing teams have been consulting local people about their priorities for the new quarter. This interaction, combined with analysis of data on our systems helps us to identify key issues. If you’d like to find out what the teams will focus on where you live you can do so by visiting the ‘your area’ section of our website.
To be kept up to date with what our local teams are up to, follow our Policing Peterborough Facebook page or you can sign up to our eCops system to receive emails about activity where you live.