Councillors unanimously back authority-wide injunction to prevent car cruising in Peterborough

Peterborough City Council will apply to the courts for an authority-wide injunction to prevent car cruising events taking place in the future.

The decision came following the publication of the final report of the Task and Finish Group who, for the last two years, have been investigating what can be done to prevent this form of anti-social behaviour.

Speaking to members of the Growth, Resources and Communities Scrutiny Committee at their meeting on 1 November, chair councillor Julie Stevenson, said: “We have sixteen recommendations in the report and three key proposals. One of those is really important and that is to have an authority-wide injunction – nothing else is going to make a difference.

“What we need are the police as well as the council and councillors from the local wards to tackle this problem – anything less than that is just not going to work, we need funding for that of course because the council just doesn’t have the money to fund this kind of thing.

“I mentioned in the meeting that this is probably the end of the beginning, but there is still much to do. We have the report out now, we have the council behind us – which is great – and we have the police behind us too, because they want the injunction as well; but now the real works starts to make that injunction a reality so residents can start to enjoy quiet nights again.”

Members of the committee were told how Peterborough has rapidly become 'the go to place' for car cruisers from Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Norfolk and London because similar injunctions in Stevenage, Colchester and London have worked, giving the police the powers they need to impose immediate fines, and even to seize vehicles from persistent abusers.

However, because the injunction needs to be applied for through the courts, it may take a year, or possibly even longer to get it into place, as councillor Stevenson explained: “I imagine it will take a lot longer than a year actually; but we have a couple of other measures in the meantime including Public Space Protection Orders which we already use, but can extend to a larger area. These allow for fixed penalty fines of £100 to be issued.

“There are also Community Protection Notices which the public may not have heard of so much before – these give warnings to the drivers of the vehicles and if they don’t adhere to them it can lead to them going to court, and who knows where that can lead for them. We will be doing all those things in the meantime, but our goal is to get that injunction in place.”

‘Pelted with golf balls’

Councillor Christian Hogg, whose ward borders the Fair View Meadows car park where a number of car cruises have taken place in recent years, and whose residents have often complained about the seeming lack of powers to prevent these events from taking place, spoke out explaining the problems the council and the police are facing.

“The organisers of these events have spotters who call ahead as soon as they see the police heading towards the car park. Teams of mechanics change the tyres on the cars from the illegal ones they use to race and drift with, to road-legal tyres so that when the police come and inspect the vehicles they are effectively normal, and legal again.

“But the police arrive, even in unmarked vehicles, they’re soon spotted and have been pelted with golf balls in the past. The cars tend to scatter in all directions, only to come back again half an hour or so later when the authorities have gone, and just continue with what they were doing before.

“Why we want this authority-wide injunction in place is because the police can then say to the owners ‘if you come back within 24 hours, we will take your car off of you’, and that is a very strong message which has been proved to work in places where these injunctions have been introduced to prevent car cruising.”

Parish councillor Neil Boyce was especially pleased that the injunction will be effective across the local authority: “What had concerned me was that if the injunction and the protection notices were only used in the city, then these people are just going to drive out to the more rural regions and carry on in the villages.

"I am therefore really pleased to hear that this injunction, when the courts grant it, will cover the entire authority and not just the city centre.”

Members of the Growth, Resources and Communities Scrutiny Committee thanked the Task and finish Group for their work compiling the report, and unanimously agreed to begin the process of obtaining an authority-wide injunction from the courts, as soon as the required funds of between £30,000-50,000 can be raised.

That funding will come in part from the council, the Police and Crime Commissioner and the Road Safety Partnerships.