Lampton Park and Park Controlled Drinking Zone Update

At the September 2009 Borough Council meeting, it was agreed to implement pilot Controlled Drinking Zones (CDZ) in two major parks and their surrounding areas. Supporting reports and figures were provided by Police Borough Intelligence Unit with information supplied by the Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNTs) for the proposed zones.

After a consultation period with public and professionals from the area, where no significant objections were received, on 15 February 2010, CDZ were implemented for Heston and Parks (including surrounding areas), indicated by the maps below, as a one year pilot scheme.

Figure 1 - Heston Park CDZ Figure 2 – Lampton Park CDZ

Since the introduction of the pilot scheme, the police continue to enforce the CDZ. No concerns or issues have been raised by the residents to Community Safety Team.

The Police will be providing the Community Safety Team with data regarding anti-social behaviour that is associated with the alcohol. Currently, there is no data available.

The Community Safety Team is currently completing an evaluation report for the Borough Council on 25 th January 2011 to consider whether the CDZ should be continued for an indefinite period

Hounslow has two permanent CDZs already in place; Hounslow and Town Centres. These CDZ’s have significantly enhanced the ability of the Police to control alcohol related violence and public disorder that occurs in and around both town centre’s, particularly at weekends. The report for the Borough Council has taken this into account and is therefore recommending that both Lampton and Heston Parks are considered for an indefinite CDZ.

Surveys were carried out by the SNTs and the Neighbourhood Safety Coordinator for Heston and Cranford to a total of 44 people to seek the views of residents and visitors of the two parks. 40 of the respondents were in favour of an indefinite CDZ. However, four of the respondents were from outside of the borough and so chose not to comment. Many of these respondents stated that the introduction of the pilot CDZ made the areas cleaner, safer and more appealing to visit.

As part of a wider consultation, letters were sent out to various key stakeholders and professionals. The Community Safety Team did not receive any responses from any of the professionals or agencies that objected to implement a permanent CDZ.

Concerns were raised by the Hounslow Drugs and Alcohol Action Team (DAAT) that there is insufficient data to highlight whether or not clients had been drinking within the CDZ prior to accessing treatment. It will be especially difficult to identify the locations where clients have been drinking prior to accessing treatment, as this does not form a key part of an assessment.

Further to this the DAAT is also aware that within the CDZs there was no outreach provision. Therefore, it has not been possible to evaluate the impact, i.e. increase in clients accessing treatment if there was appropriate outreach provision. It is generally thought that outreach provision would provide street drinkers/problematic drinkers with least harm prevention or safer drinking advice, along with signposting clients to appropriate treatment.

The Community Safety Team is working closely with the Police, in particularly the SNTs, to gather as much information on individuals who have been subject to ‘de-can’ – removing cans from persistent drinkers within the CDZ. Identifying these individuals will enable the partnership to adopt an outreach approach and sign post them to appropriate treatment services. As the DAAT highlight there is no funding available to undertake such activity – therefore this will be reliant on the SNTs to sign post. SNT Officers have been provided with basic alcohol awareness training by our local alcohol treatment provider.

We hope to have data from the police to include in the report for the borough council which is due for submission in mid November 2010.

Sabeel Khan Partnership Performance Officer Community Safety Team