‘WE’LL TAKE ACTION’
Police vow to enforce crackdown on city centre nuisances
People behaving in an antisocial manner in Sunderland city centre face on-the-spot fines from Monday.
Northumbria Police and Sunderland City Council hope the Public Space Protection Order – which can see £75 Fixed Penalty Notices issued – will help stamp out nuisance behaviour in our parks and on our streets when it comes into force next week.
The order – which runs for three years and aims to restrict activity which causes nuisance or problems in the community – has been made possible as part of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.
An eight-week consultation exercise at the end of last year saw more than 300 responses from the public, winning the backing of the majority of those who took part.
Speaking to the Echo in Mowbray Park, Neighbourhood Inspector Jamie Southwell said: “From Monday, the city centre is going to have its first public space protection order, which covers a large part of the city centre.
“It will give the police and council additional powers to deal with people who behave in an anti-social manner. Some of the activities include begging, bin-raking and certain aspects of drinking alcohol within the city centre, dog fouling and the inappropriate use of skateboards.
“The members of my police team deal with these individuals on a daily basis anyway.
“What it means now is we have an additional tool to deal with nuisance behaviour.
“With begging, our first priority will be to ensure that we safeguard vulnerable individuals and, if they need assistance, help that individual.
“In the vast majority of cases, though, what we find is A – they are behaving in an intimidating and aggressive manner and quite often they try to target people who are vulnerable in the city centre, but also B – the profit of their gain, they don’t need that where they use it to gamble or purchase alcohol and they are not doing it because they don’t have any food.
“This allows us to deal with these individuals in a swift manner, through a verbal warning or a written warning, or we may decide to issue a fixed penalty notice, which will incur a fine of £75.
“However, the officers can use their professional judgement to decide what the appropriate course of action.
“We welcome the introduction of this Public Space Protection Order and see it as a huge milestone in our efforts to make the city centre even safer.
“For far too long people living, working and visiting the city centre have had to put up with the anti-social behaviour of a small minority and on occasions this behaviour has been aggressive and intimidating.
“We carry out regular patrols throughout the city centre and if we see anyone breaching the order, we will take action.”
Deputy council leader Harry Trueman said: “This has come as a result of concerns from the public, particularly in the areas of begging and bin raking.
“Unfortunately, we’ve had to go down this route, where orders have had to be put in place, and the police can now give fixed penalties.
“It’s a little bit sad, because it’s not the majority of our citizens that break these rules, but the minority makes it really awful for the rest of us.
“This order is about replacing current controls on the drinking of alcohol in public places and matters such as dog fouling and the keeping of dogs on leads.
“The order is a deterrent to anti-social behaviour and also about controlling and restricting the sort of behaviour that a minority of people engage in and that the majority of people find unacceptable. It is all about allowing people to enjoy open public spaces free from nuisance and anti-social behaviour and ensuring central Sunderland is a pleasant place to work in, to live in, and to visit.”
“People living, workingandvisiting havehadtoputupwith anti-social behaviour ofthesmallminority” JAMIE SOPUT