manchester news
Thursday, 17th November 2005
Street boozing soon to be outlawed
Katrina McKeever A CRACKDOWN on drunken louts in Wilmslow town centre is underway with police gaining tough new powers to tackle binge drinking.
Police moved one step closer to creating no drinking zones in Wilmslow and Handforth town centres as the borough council agreed the idea in principal.
And the government handed down the power to issue on the spot fines of up to £80 for alcohol related disorder on the streets, just in time for Christmas.
The no drinking zones will be rubber stamped as soon as a clearly identifiable area can be drawn up for both Wilmslow and Handforth.
Anyone caught drinking within these zones must surrender their drinks to the police when requested or face arrest.
Using crime statistics, police drew up a map of booze nuisance hot spots that would be subject to the ban.
The map highlighted 41 streets around Wilmslow, from Lacey Green, to Alderley Road and Lindow Common.
In Handforth, 27 streets were picked out, including Meriton Road Park, Manchester Road and Spath Lane.
Difficult
But councillors felt a list of specific streets would be too difficult to enforce.
They want to see an easily identifiable zone that takes in every side street and alley way to avoid any wrangles.
Coun Paul Whitely, chairman of the licensing committee, said: "This scheme has been a success in both Poynton and Macclesfield and we want to reel it out into other areas.
"This is a concerted effort on behalf of this council to stamp out antisocial behaviour. It is important that we get this right."
"We want it to work and we want to make absolutely sure that what we are putting in place is the right thing. If we are going to do it, we are going to do it properly."
Police have also pledged to have extra officers on the streets to tackle boozy troublemakers at source,
Inspector Frank Marshall said: "Starting this weekend, every Friday and Saturday night we’re having additional police officers going out in to the town centre and targeting premises selling alcohol.
"The idea is to police the premises and try and cut off the supply of booze to youngsters early in the evening as that has a big effect later in the evening when the anti-social behaviour tends to start.
"Later in the evening we will be targeting general anti-social behaviour from people that have been drinking in the bars." Submit your comments
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