The Hillfields village square where street drinking and drug dealing are 'tolerated'

[dutchman]

Councillors want more action on anti-social behaviour in the city



Boozing in public, begging and drugs are still blighting areas of Coventry despite powers being in place to crack down on these activities. Street drinking, drug taking and drug dealing are "the norm" in Hillfields' village square, according to ward councillor David Welsh.

Cllr Welsh (Lab) claimed the behaviour is "tolerated by all agencies to a degree" while those living there have to see it every day.

"People drink all day on the street, they queue up for their drugs, they take their drugs, they go to the toilet behind the community centre which is very near Sidney Stringer Primary, and then they carry on," he said.

He and other councillors told of the daily anti-social behaviour they see in areas of the city at a Scrutiny Board meeting this week (19 April.)

They were critical of how special powers brought in to deal with undesirable activities almost a decade ago are being used by the council and police.

Since 2014, Coventry has had five Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs) put in to ban certain activities from specific areas. Some things such as driving untaxed and uninsured cars are banned citywide while in Hillfields drug taking, drug dealing and alcohol misuse are not allowed.

But Coventry councillors weren't happy with the explanations and called for more to be done to reassure the people they represent. Cllr Naeem Ahktar (Lab), chair of the Scrutiny Board, said: "This is a joke now that we've got something in place but we don't have resources to enforce it."

Cllr Julia Lepoidevin (Con) said: "I do understand the need for dealing with underlying problems, that they are huge. But I have to tell you as a ward councillor the public are losing confidence in community safety and in police, and they certainly are in my ward. What we're doing isn't enough."

Cllr Jackie Gardiner (Con) said success for her and colleagues will be seeing the behaviour reduce. She said: "If we get less complaints then we are seeing that it's successful - but we keep getting the complaints."

Cllr Jim O'Boyle (Lab), who represents St Michael's ward, said he and ward colleagues had been "good advocates" of PSPOs for police and officers. He said the debate was about "public confidence" in how the powers are being used, and highlighted the lack of statistics in the report to show this.

"That quite frankly in a democratic society is not good enough," he said. "When we introduce powers, we expect them to be used, proportionately yes but we expect them to be used."

Cllr O'Boyle also talked about the unique challenges faced by the area he represents. He said: "We've got street workers, we don't have them anywhere else in the city.

"That then attracts the sort of detrius of criminal fraternity, such as drug dealers, who then bring in knives, they bring in guns. That's happening to people, and they see that on their streets daily."

"That's unacceptable. So when we say we want to see the powers used, that's what we mean," he added. "Because we're talking about individuals who often are scared of going outside the house, are scared about reporting because of reprisals."

His ward colleague, Cllr Welsh, said the council has been working to help tackle underlying problems such as homelessness.

"But at some point we need to say to people you shouldn't be doing that here and you need to move on," he said. "I see the beggars, people in the city centre see the beggars. And this is the challenge, people say to us well the powers aren't working and police aren't doing anything."