Local authorities urged to use existing powers to tackle alcohol disorder

20-Nov-2013 - Last updated on 20-Nov-2013 at 08:33 GMT

Local authorities have the powers to tackle late night disorder

Local authorities do not require additional powers to tackle alcohol disorder but need to use them properly, the director of regulation and enforcement at Birmingham City Council has said.

Speaking at an All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group event last week on tackling alcohol harm, Jacqui Kennedy, who has previously claimed she prefers a partnership approach to the use of the late-night levy or early-morning restriction orders, said: “I don’t think local authorities need more powers, we have more powers than we can shake a stick at. They just need to be used properly.”

Broad Street

Kennedy, who has responsibility for around 1,300 alcohol on-licences and 1,000 off-licences in Birmingham, said how the city’s Broad Street had previously been taken over by young people aged between 15 and 19.

“We had significant levels of crime, significant levels of antisocial behaviour and a high vacancy of properties, particularly in the Broad Street area. The place had become a bit of a toilet, as everybody was completely wasted.

“We were also looking at facing the new Licensing Act and we had half the media camped out on Broad Street just to wait and see what went wrong.”

The situation became so bad that it was impacting on investment in the city, she said.

“Our Symphony Hall and ICC, which had been promoted strongly as a conference centre, was actually sending people out in their dinner jackets who then had 19-year-olds being sick on their shoes.”

New strategy

A new strategy, backed by the local authority, police and licensed trade, has now changed Broad Street.

“A quick win was to introduce a taxi-marshall scheme, as one of the flashpoints was getting people home who had had too much to drink,” she said.

A voluntary code for drinks promotions on Friday and Saturday nights, which put them in the firing line of the Office of Fair Trading, was backed by the local pubwatch group.

A joint licensing taskforce of environmental health officers, trading standards officers, licensing officers, fire officers and West Midlands Police saw “targeted intervention”.

This, plus the use of other powers such as designating cumulative impact areas, saw alcohol-related crime drop significantly.