People will face fines of £100 for loitering at bus stations after new Public Spaces Protection Orders were passed by Caerphilly County Borough Council.
On July 29, the cabinet passed orders that bans behaviour such as loitering, drinking alcohol, and general anti-social behaviour at Nelson, Bargoed, Blackwood and Caerphilly bus stations and Caerphilly railway station.
They unanimously supported the orders in order to “alleviate significant antisocial behaviour, disorder and annoyance for users of the bus stations/shelters, residents and businesses nearby”.
The new powers, under the Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, last for three years and ban a wider range of behaviour than previous law.
Councillors were concerned about young people and the homeless congregating in the bus stations.
The orders will be enforced with fixed penalty notices of £100 that will be reduced to £75 if paid within seven days.
Caerphilly AM Jeff Cuthbert welcomed the orders after seeing evidence from Gwent Police of “persistent youth annoyance, anti–social behaviour, substance misuse, damage to property and intimidation to members of the public”.
Mr Cuthbert said: “Antisocial behaviour in bus stations has been a problem over the years and will be something many users of public transport will be aware of.
“Clearly the council needs to make use of the powers it has and I believe this approach is a proactive step in the right direction.
“We must be reduce antisocial behaviour at bus stations to protect users of the bus and train service.”
Cllr Nigel George, the Cabinet Member for Community and Leisure Services said: “I am pleased that Cabinet endorsed the implementation of these Public Space Protection Orders.
“These will provide us with an additional tool to help tackle anti-social behaviour and disorder at these locations and help to make our communities even safer places for our residents.”
The council must provide adequate signage of the law before enforcement can take place. A council spokesperson said arrangements will be made in the near future.
An initiative is needed to clear the bus and railway stations of noisy and belligerent people who just use them as a convenient, sheltered, area to congregate. I am not so sure about the fixed penalty fine bit. These people are not going to hang around and supply their names and addresses.
I do not see how it could possibly work. Envisage the following:
There is a group of youths by a bus station outside Caerphilly Train Station, the police or a PCSO attends the area asking the youths to leave, the youths refuse to do so, the PCSO and police try to issue a fine, the youths run away until the police leave before retuning.
Who do the police fine?
Are the police going to chase after the youths?
The whole scheme is laughable!
Wrong friend; It is entirely possible.
The Council spend many hundreds of thousands of pounds, every year, of our ratepayers money on a Quasi, under trained, under controlled, impersonating `police officers` group. Who work without any meaningful command structure, I have a view this civic group of `enforcers` is illegal, but, the Chief Constable of Gwent has given his blessing to these people to issue fixed penalty notices for a number of issues, and this will be one of them. Another one is control over closed roads for Caerphilly Council events.
These people are largely devoid of personality, and as a result most of them lack confidence and little or no iniciative, turning them into `jobs worths`. riding around the borough in a fleet of brand new, under occupied, vans. And, nobody knows the cost of this, the Council do not itemise it in its accounts, forensic accountants working for a community group are currently trying to establish the cost of this `force`.
The other huge problem with this `tier` of law enforcment is that it is headed by a Council Officer with no experience of civic law enforcement, by a party political `Councillor`, who can promote and demand the way these people work and their `priorities` in the communities, for instance the Labour party felt motivated to introduced this `scheme`, but would other parties have done so?. This group of quasi enforcers are deployed to areas of the borough on a party political basis, depending on the demands of ward Councillors, and can, if used efficiently, by this method, improve the local popularity of that councillor.
Watch these people, watching you, they keep records of all members of the public they come in cantact with, with no real data regulation control over that information, in fact, you dont actually have to come into direct contact with one, it can be information given to them about you by a neighber, that information is collated and stored, you will recognise one of course if you walk a dog, probably lurking behind a tree waiting to pounce, or, following the smell of cigarette smoke in the street hoping to catch an unsuspecting litter bug.
There needs to be far more command and control over these people, there needs to be far more public recognition of what they are employed to do, there needs to be far more direct supervision and control over them, and there needs to be public accountablitiy of everthing they do, so that the ratepayers can judge the effectiveness of what they do, and, the total annual cost of it to the ratepayer of Caerphily.