Is Victims’ Champion scheme an admission of city failure?

Tackling anti-social behaviour seems to be flavour of the month in Nottingham at the moment.

First the Evening Post reports reported yesterday that ‘Street Pastors’ will soon be appearing in Nottingham city centre and on Friday, Gordon Brown (without a hint of electioneering, of course) stressed his government’s commitment to help people suffering anti-social behaviour by announcing a  ‘Victim’s Champions’ Scheme.

Anti-social behaviour: Perpetrators or victims?

Apparently this new scheme will be introduced in hot spot areas of anti-social behaviour and Nottingham will be one of the first councils in the country to have one. It seems to involve recruiting a band of  experts who ‘ tell people about their rights and bring police and councils together to solve problems’.

I have no objections to the first part of this. Many people don’t understand their rights and entitlements and recent cuts to advice services mean that it’s not always easy to know what public bodies could, or should, be doing to help you in a whole range of difficult circumstances.

However, as for bringing together police and councils (the City Council, presumably, in this case), do we really need anyone else to do this in Nottingham?

We have the Crime and Drugs Partnership (the ‘partnership’ bit of their name seems to indicate that they do – or should do - some degree of ‘bringing together’) and we are supposed to have Neighbourhood Policing, which involves the police working more closely with local people and with other public bodies to make policing more responsive and effective. In addition to this, the City Council employs, in each of its nine administrative areas of the city, a Neighbourhood Manager, whose job (you’ve guessed it…) is to bring people together to tackle issues like… crime and anti-social behaviour

And, as if that isn’t enough, we have Victim Support, a national charity which lists, amongst its various services to victims of crime: information on police and court procedures, help in dealing with other organisations and links to other sources of help.

The introduction of a Victim’s Champion would seem to suggest that crime and anti-social behaviour are now beyond the control of these organisations or that they simply don’t work.

Green and pleasant Meadows?

The news that a £200m regeneration of the Meadows is to go ahead will be welcome news for people who live there and should also be celebrated by the rest of the city.

Let's hope images like this are in the past for The Meadows

In common with places like Hyson Green, Radford and St Ann’s, the Meadows has, for too long, been synonymous with poor housing, crime and deprivation. Also, in common with the redevelopment of St. Anns in the 70’s, much of the ‘modern’ Meadows appears to have been built to design crime in rather than out and to create an claustrophobic atmosphere which has served only to emphasise the physical isolation of the area from the rest of the city. It has also helped to foster a feeling that the Meadows is an island of crime and disadvantage floating at a respectable distance from the gentrification of the city’s Lace Market, the fading opulence of The Park Estate and the middle-class smugness of West Bridgford; a place visited by most city dwellers only when they want to park their car for the Riverside Festival or get lost trying to get off the Embankment after the Sunday picnic by the river.

Of course, physical infrastructure will not solve the problems of the Meadows on its own and I think Councillor Alan Clark, portfolio holder for Neighbourhood Regeneration at Nottingham City Council, is a little naive when he says: “This funding will transform The Meadows into a stronger, more sustainable community which will benefit residents and businesses as a whole”, but, with the commitment of local residents, the continued work of the Meadows Partnership Trust and other agencies and organisations in the area and with some imaginative, grass-roots development work with people in the various communities that make up the area, things could be looking up at last.

I certainly hope so.

Short measures from Balls on binge drinking

“Another sound bite from a failed government”… that’s how one Evening Post reader summed up the announcement from Children’s Minister, Ed Balls, that Nottingham is one of the cities that will benefit from £1.4 of government money to tackle binge drinking in young people. It is to be amongst 70 towns and cities throughout the country which will receive this funding.

The cause of the comment was the realisation that £1.4m shared equally across 70 towns (assuming that it is shared equally) works out at only £20,000 each. It’s not a lot when you look at the size and complexity of the teen drinking problem in cities like Nottingham. But it’s also pretty irrelevant to the underlying problems that drive teenage drinking (in fact, many people’s drinking)… and that is British culture.

I’m always amazed when I hear young people talking about going out to get drunk as if this should be the sole aim of any social event. Not to have a good time and, along the way, have a few drinks (which no-one would argue with) but to get drunk as a pre-requisite to having a good time; as if it’s not possible to enjoy yourself without being completely pissed. And the most disturbing thing is, for many people, this seems to be true.

£20,000 is unlikely to bring an end to this

This view is perpetuated throughout our culture. Comedians joke about being drunk in a way they would never do about using Class A drugs, sitcoms use drinking and its after effects as rich comedic material and almost all soaps use the local pub as a focal point for most of their characters. This may just be a reflection of life – or, at least, life in Albert Square or Coronation Street – and I’m not suggesting that we censor any branch of popular culture in order to remove any reference to alcohol.

However, we do need something much more substantial than anyone seems to be suggesting to address some of the problems casued by alcohol. The statistics are stark; Nearly 9000 people die each year from alcohol-related causes; offenders in 45% of all violent incidents are under the influence of alcohol and 37% of domestic violence cases involve alcohol.  In nearly a million violent attacks in 2007-08, the aggressors were believed to be drunk.

This is a problem that requires much more input from parents, teachers, youth workers, the police, programme makers and others over a lengthy period if we are really going to address the problem.

Mr Balls’ £20,000 sticking plaster is unlikely to make much difference.

Follow that scent…

It’s been announced by the Nottingham Evening Post that a £6,000 reward is being offered to try to catch thieves who stole perfume and aftershave worth about £160,000 from a lorry.

The vehicle was parked on the northbound carriageway of the A1 in Nottinghamshire, near Blyth, when the goods were taken. Thieves slashed the lorry sides while the driver was asleep and stole perfume including Davidoff Cool Water, Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely and Calvin Klein Eternity. 

If they’ve got police dogs that can sniff out cannabis and crack, surely they’ve got a couple that can track down this lot?