'People urinate on walls': Picturesque Bristol market town plagued by anti-social behaviour says councillor

South Gloucestershire Cllr Becky Romaine has launched a petition urging the council to take action over the spate of incidents in Chipping Sodbury to keep residents safe at night. It follows the withdrawal of the local authority’s street marshals in the spring to save money.

Ward Cllr Romaine (Conservative, Chipping Sodbury & Cotswold Edge) said residents, publicans and business owners had told her there had been a recent increase in antisocial behaviour in and around the High Street, although none of it had been reported to the police so the local authority was unaware.

She told a South Gloucestershire Council cabinet meeting that the street marshals had played a vital role in preventing problems and protecting the community, but that since the service ended, incidents had become more frequent.

Cllr Romaine said cabinet member for communities and local place Cllr Sean Rhodes (Labour, Kingswood) had told her during a meeting before the marshals were axed that the council was looking to increase its outreach team to help combat the problems in the town but that so far nothing had happened.

She told the meeting on Monday, June 16: “Antisocial behaviour in Chipping Sodbury is bad and it’s a big problem. I’ve been around to all the publicans again and I’ve spoken with residents. I know it’s not been reported to the police, unfortunately, therefore it hasn’t gone to South Gloucestershire Council.

“However, there is a major problem, not just with antisocial behaviour but, when the pubs kick out, there is drunken behaviour which did stop with the marshals there. For instance, people are urinating on people’s business walls, people are shouting, it’s noisy.

“It’s not just young people. The significant part the marshals played was to stop an incident from happening simply from being visible in the community and this is an approach that needs to be replicated.

“I appreciate funding has stopped and I’m not blaming anyone for that, I just want this matter sorted out for the community. I’ve said to people to report it to the police but they’re not doing it and I’m not sure why.

“So what I would please ask you as cabinet is to step up efforts to tackle this as soon as possible. The street marshals were a visible presence in the street, and it’s a busy street with quite a few pubs.

“We can’t just leave it like this. It’s immensely important and I would really urge you to bring the outreach teams forward. The toilets in Chipping Sodbury are vandalised all the time, even with the 24-hour CCTV and it’s not making much of a change to that.”

Cllr Rhodes replied: “We have recently upgraded the CCTV systems within Chipping Sodbury. There has been significant investment in the area which consists of high-resolution cameras which have now been installed and that enables and expands the level of coverage which will facilitate more accurate identification and monitoring of the area.

“We’re continuing to monitor the crime data and incidents in the area.”

He said police data showed there had been just two late-night antisocial behaviour incidents in the High Street since February.

Cllr Rhodes said: “We’re working with Chipping Sodbury Town Council to address the specific issue in relation to the vandalism of the public toilets and we’re in discussion around the possibility of additional temporary CCTV as a tool to combat this.

“We’ve also met with the town council to discuss the street marshal contract, what did it involve, and what other nightmare economy options are viable in the town centre, such as volunteer night angels or street pastor schemes and what might be most appropriate to deal with the specific needs of the Chipping Sodbury community and the nighttime economy.

“Community safety colleagues will be meeting with town councillors to discuss plans for over the summer for any enhancement that can be offered by the council to support the needs from an antisocial behaviour perspective.

“If people aren’t reporting things, it makes it nigh-on impossible for us as councillors to make the case for extra resources to be put in place.”

Cllr Romaine’s petition is here: https://letstalk.conservatives.com/BEC11E43-4841-F011-A3C2-00505693FFD8#!/