Last resort
Peter Callow, whose ruling Conservative group made waves by taking control of Blackpool Council in May’s local elections, told LGE he plans to draft extra police officers into the town centre to enforce an alcohol ban and target aggressive beggars.
According to sources at the local authority these plans are still at the discussion stage, and it remains unclear whether the new policing plan is to be met from existing or new resources, and how much it will cost.{mosimage}
Opposition Labour councillor Simon Blackburn, however, said serving police officers in his Brunswick ward are being “routinely abstracted from their beats” to boost town centre police numbers at weekends.
“They aren’t happy about it, I’m not happy about it and my voters aren’t happy about it,” he told LGE. “If Cllr Callow imagines that taking away their police on a Friday and Saturday night will lead to economic regeneration in Blackpool, well, it won’t be much comfort to people getting their doors kicked in at two in the morning.”
Cllr Blackburn also rejected the idea that the measures would increase the value of tourism and benefit his ward though increased employment.
“Tourism is peripheral to their lives,” he said. “We are talking about the most vulnerable groups - people what cannot work through ill health or because they have young children - who have little or no contact with the town centre, and whose police are being taken away to separate grown men, mostly from outside the area, who are going out with the express intention of getting drunk and knowingly engaging in violent behaviour.
“I would have thought the many bars and nightclubs could contribute to the cost of any extra policing.”
However, Cllr Callow said he was acting on a clear manifesto commitment to target unacceptable behaviour and make the resort more attractive to families and investors.
“We have to be willing to change the visitor profile if necessary,” he continued. “To that end we are asking stag and hen parties to sign a voluntary code of conduct, which will be launched in the very near future.”
Scorn has been poured on this initiative in some quarters, he acknowledged: “But it’s just a reminder to them to have a great time but to keep it within bounds. You see them dropping their trousers in the town centre at two o’clock on a Friday afternoon, which isn’t acceptable either for locals or other tourists - this is just a signal to them that times have changed.”
The new council is also limiting the number of sex shops in the town and has set the wheels in motion to curb the proliferation of lap dancing bars. To match the metaphorical clean-up, Cllr Callow said street-cleaning services were also to be improved.
These moves form part of Blackpool’s ongoing struggle to attract more overnight tourists, conferences and business investors, which suffered a severe blow in January when the Government’s Casino Advisory Panel rejected the town’s bid to play host to Britain’s first “supercasino”.
