Home Office names 20 Local Alcohol Action Areas

Created by the Home Office and health agency Public Health England, the LAAA scheme aims to help areas with high levels of social problems related to drinking with co-ordinated initiatives over a 15-month period.

Bringing together local agencies, licensing authorities, health bodies and the police, projects will focus on tackling alcohol-related crime and disorder, reducing alcohol-related health harms, and promoting growth by establishing diverse and vibrant night-time economies.

Crime prevention minister Norman Baker said the coalition government is taking a wide range of action to tackle alcohol-related harm, which he claimed costs the country around £21bn a year.

He explained: “The LAAA project is another measure designed to tackle the problems caused by excessive alcohol use. In addition, I am pressing the industry itself to take more responsibility for the problems that inappropriate use of their products cause.”

Mentor areas​

The 20 areas will receive support from the Home Office, the Department of Health and PHE. Each will be put in touch with ‘mentor areas’ where similar alcohol-related issues have already been successfully tackled.

Scarborough Borough Council, one of the local authorities to successfully bid for the scheme, said it already had formulated a three-year action plan for the town’s night-time economy.

Measures put forward include a highly visible and proactive police approach, backed up by visible door staff and multi-agency patrols; the use of a “passive drugs dog”; the development of more rear smoking areas for pubs and bars on key routes, and a crackdown on drinks promotions.

The action plan was the result of an extensive study carried out by the council, which showed that while general crime and disorder related to the night time economy has been falling across the borough for the past four years, incidents linked to alcohol have been going up, particularly in the town centre on Saturday nights.

Scarborough Borough council leader Tom Fox said: “We have carried out a tremendous amount of work to identify the nature of the problems we experience locally as a result of alcohol.

“We know the impact this has on local residents and our public sector partners and I'm very pleased this has been recognised by the Home Office.”

The 20 Local Alcohol Areas​

Twelve areas have been listed to address all three of the LAAA aims:

• Blackpool
• Croydon
• Greater Manchester
• Halton
• Middlesbrough
• Northamptonshire
• Nottinghamshire
• Pembrokeshire
• Scarborough
• Slough
• Stoke-on-Trent
• Swansea

Three areas have been listed to address crime and health issues:

• Hastings
• Newham
• Southend-on-Sea

Two areas have been listed to address crime and diversification issues:

• Gravesham
• Newham

Liverpool and Doncaster have been listed to address health issues. Gloucester City, meanwhile, has been listed to address diversification issues.