By the Community Safety Manager, Brian Martin.

The Community Safety Manager, Brian Martin, referred Members to the ‘to follow’ report which identified a methodology for assessing whether an area could be considered for and alcohol-related Public Space Protection Order. 

The Community Safety Managerexplained that the 30 July 2015 Cabinet Meeting had received a paper regarding replacement of the borough’s two Designated Public Place Orders with one Public Space Protection Order.  It was noted that the proposal had been agreed to and it was recommended that it should be adopted to the 24 September Council Meeting.  The Community Safety Manager went onto explain the Cabinet paper had also covered the procedures that should be put in place for consideration as to whether areas should be made PSPOs which too was put forward for Council for approval.

It was noted that the Cabinet paper recognised that DPPOs had been established when data on alcohol related Anti-Social Behaviour incidents was readily available and it was quite straightforward to map areas and assess whether a particular location was regularly experiencing issues.  However, there was an acknowledgement that it was potentially no longer possible to easily get geographically based data which could identify a ‘hot-spot’.  The Community Safety Manager was therefore asked to present criteria to the November 2015 Crime and Disorder Overview and Scrutiny Panel for assessing whether a location could be considered for an alcohol related PSPO.

The Community Safety Manager informed the Panel that discussions with Thames Valley Police HQ Performance Management Team had established that geographically based data could be provided on alcohol related ASB and a specific data format had been agreed.  It was noted that a year’s worth of ASB data had been provided and it had been agreed that such data could be requested on an ad-hoc basis as long as the Thames Valley Police HQ Performance Management Team were given sufficient notice. 

It was noted that a decision to consider an area for an alcohol-related PSPO should be triggered by one or more of the criteria below:

• in a one year period, 5 or more ASB incidents attributable to a particular location;
• within one year, 3 or more complaints from residents about a location; and
• Exceptionally, an urgent request from the local area requesting an area be given urgent consideration, thereby allowing the flexibility to ‘fast-track’ a particular location.

Members were informed that if one or more of the above criteria were fulfilled the borough’s Community Safety Team would carry out a consultation with the public and other interested parties and present the findings to either full council or the PSPO Panel as appropriate.

In the ensuing discussion the following points were noted:

Ø  That the inherited PSPOs had been combined as one as of the 31 October 2015 and would likely be reviewed in a years time. 

Ø  That the Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act (2014) required that new PSPOs were reviewed after one year’s operation and thereafter every 3 years.  It was suggested that any review used the dataset described in 3.5 of the report. 

Ø  That the Council would be introducing some new resident friendly flexible signs in the future.

Ø  That if enforcement of PSPOs were not being seen then representations should be made to the Thames Valley Police.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the Crime and Disorder Overview and Scrutiny Panel agreed:

i)     the criteria / process  for assessing whether a proposed PSPO relating to alcohol should be considered by the Council’s PSPO Panel / full Council; and

ii)    agreed that similar data in conjunction with advice from relevant agencies should be used for assessing whether to continue with PSPOs at the one year and three year review points.

The Chairman thanked the Community Safety Manager for his update.