I attended a summit on Street Drinking called by the Mayor of Lewisham and Steve is now considering next steps including whether to have a DCZ for parts of Sydenham and other areas in Lewisham or have a DCZ for the whole of the borough to avoid displacement from one locality to another. This is an issue we shall continue to tackle.
With all due respect, I think you, and Lewisham Council in general, are still dragging your feet on this one. With a DCZ in Penge, and a borough wide DCZ in Southwark it seems pretty obvious that we will end up with a borough wide DCZ, and to hear that Sir Steve is still considering ... is frustrating since I remember making this same point to you several months ago. As you know, I do appreciate that this is a complex issue, but it is public opinion that is making it a priority. You have as one of your priorities 'Securing a vibrant High Street' but you know this problem is undermining this.
And of course, it is not just the drink, but it is more heroin users we are talking about here. I will pm you about the particular thing which has prompted me into coming back to you on this one.
This issue is getting worse. Sydenham is becoming a "soft" location for such people and their numbers are increasing. I witnessed something today that I don't know how to explain to my children - people dependent on substances and using anti-social behaviour. I have even been flashed at by such people using an area on my street as a urinal!
Please could you demand another summit and report back to us?
mummycat wrote:I only venture out of Sydenham once a week, so I can't comment on Lewisham.
I'm urging the Councillors that we voted for, together with the Town Centre Manager to find a solution to improve Sydenham.
Forget the poor unfortunate street drinkers and the problems they face in their wrechid lives , Sydenham is what's important, not some of the poorest misfortunate people in society.
These wrechid souls need help so what do we do? mummycat doesn't care, she just wants them out of Sydenham.
'Mummycat' is an active member of our local community trying to improve Sydenham for good. Saying she doesn't care is simply wrong. There is a drink and drugs problem so it seems. Letting people drink openly on the street and act in a unsociable manner is wrong. We need a solution to the problem that not only helps these people but helps Sydenham.
Negative comments targeting individuals saying they don't care is not positive and not doing anything to solve the problem.
leenewham wrote:mikecg, sorry, but you are being unfair.
'Mummycat' is an active member of our local community trying to improve Sydenham for good. Saying she doesn't care is simply wrong. There is a drink and drugs problem so it seems. Letting people drink openly on the street and act in a unsociable manner is wrong. We need a solution to the problem that not only helps these people but helps Sydenham.
Negative comments targeting individuals saying they don't care is not positive and not doing anything to solve the problem.
So, how do we solve this problem?
There is no immediate solution to this problem no pun intended, these people are victims themselves. If for example the council implemented an outright enforceable ban then a wet day centre may need to be provided to facilitate homeless people with drink problems and the issues associated with it like help and support. But that may go down like a led Zeppelin with the local community because of the problems this would bring.
A lot of these people are chronically mentally ill and are being dehumanized.
leenewham wrote:mikecg, sorry, but you are being unfair.
'Mummycat' is an active member of our local community trying to improve Sydenham for good. Saying she doesn't care is simply wrong. There is a drink and drugs problem so it seems. Letting people drink openly on the street and act in a unsociable manner is wrong. We need a solution to the problem that not only helps these people but helps Sydenham.
Negative comments targeting individuals saying they don't care is not positive and not doing anything to solve the problem.
So, how do we solve this problem?
There is no immediate solution to this problem no pun intended, these people are victims themselves. If for example the council implemented an outright enforceable ban then a wet day centre may need to be provided to facilitate homeless people with drink problems and the issues associated with it like help and support. But that may go down like a led Zeppelin with the local community because of the problems this would bring.
A lot of these people are chronically mentally ill and are being dehumanized.
Street drinkers?
What about the elephant in the living room?
So-called 'gang culture'. Ongoing moron vendettas, guns, knives and one pathetic murder after the other?
Clean up our streets? Where would you like to start? A bit of tinkering here,
a stern word there? Move along, please...You look a bit untidy. I'm afraid that large plastic bottle of 'cider' is a definite no-no!
Come off it, with the greatest respect. Maybe a giant human pooper-scooper for the real animated muck prowling around our streets ? Enterprise award for innovation, anybody?
[Bring back Dean Swift]
With all due respect, I think that the street drinkers and heroin users of Southwark and Penge rarely make it all the way to our part of the world and so I would prefer to resist jumping on the CPZ bandwagon.
I really don't think the problem is as serious as, for example, places like Camberwell Green or Brixton Centre which do have CPZs, although I've not seen much evidence of it resolving very much at all. If anything.
Yes, Big Bad Wolf, they do hang out outside Lewisham Hospital but that's because that's where the drug support agency and the mental health unit are and I imagine that is where they best hang out? No?
If this was the Hither Green Town Forum they may of course disagree with me on that point...
There has been a fair bit of argument about how local our street drinkers are, and you are probably right to suggest that they are reasonably local. I believe the police do know where they live, but they do not divulge this information. On the other hand, enforcement measures can move them on - and at times I have seen them in Crystal Palace.
DCZs are not a cure all - as I understand it, all they do is give the police a greater flexibility, which sometimes the police are interested in using, sometimes not. I'd be interested to know whether Bensonby thinks the additional flexibility does not amount to much, or whether his lack of interest in DCZs is more principled.
The point about a DCZ, if these powers are to be used, being borough wide, is that various small DCZs will just be an administrative nightmare.
You're entitled to your views, but I hope you'd agree that dealing with small issues, to show that people do care about an area - the 'broken window theory' - has at least something going for it. Whatever you might dream of in flights of savage Swiftian imagination is not going to happen, so I hope you'd join in encouraging the authorities to adopt whatever measured targeted approaches are legally possible.
I share your commitment to evidence based policy making, so thanks for that link. I'm not sure if anyone has ever suggested that DCZs are more than part of the solution. Dealing with the problem will require several different agencies, and Lewisham Council's role has to be to co-ordinate. It would be nice to be more constructiuve than taking various opportunities to remind officers and Councillors, but we really are not experts. However, I think we have every right to try to keep them focused on the problem.
New York was a great showcase for Broken Window Theory where the 'little things' like litter, graffiti, petty crime actually had a massive effect on the 'bigger things' like gangs and crime.
It's worth reading Malcom Gladwells excellent 'Tipping Point' for more info.
I agree with mikecg that its not enough just to slap a ban on.
You may have to designate an area that's 'ok' for drinkers to congregate and then people who are near that are going to seriously resent it, so it'd need alot of thought.
Slightly off topic but in a similar vein perhaps, I was reading some horrible thing -in the Observer I think- anyway, it was about how Fulham's Tory council shut down all the homeless hostels in the hope that they'd go elsewhere and it wouldn't be their problem anymore - well because of that an 8 months pregnant woman ended up having to sleep in a park for several days, for christ's sake.
Its a dilemma because you might make you area look all nice an drunk-free but it doesn't mean these people no longer exist.