EUKN - United Kingdom - Respect for Nottingham

Respect for Nottingham

Introduction

Case Study Information – Respect for Nottingham

Problem

Nottingham city centre hit a low point in 2003 when it became impossible for residents to chop without being accosted by aggressive beggars and many streets in the centre were blighted by graffiti, litter and fly-posting.
With the aim of ‘making life uncomfortable for people who make life uncomfortable for the ordinary people of Nottingham’, ‘Respect 4 Nottingham’ took a tough and uncompromising stand on:

cleanliness and quality of the environment,
begging,
street drug dealing,
street prostitution
and anti-social behaviour in local neighbourhoods.

Description

This case study shows how a co-ordinated, sophisticated and multi-agency carrot and stick approach to the issues by ‘Respect for Nottingham’ produced early and visible results

Approach

Appointments: a co-ordinator, 2 new Community Against Drugs (CAD) posts, 40 Neighbourhood (street) Wardens bringing the total up to 80 of which 8 were in the City Centre itself.

The wardens’ prime role:

high visibility patrolling,
issuing fixed penalty notices,
moving beggars on and reporting low level crime and nuisance.

Cleansing staff were boosted, a second graffiti squad established and the special waste collection service given extra staff and an extra vehicle.

Undercover police officers tackled begging, drug dealing, prostitution and kerb crawling.

A hard-hitting publicity campaign encouraged people to give to charities rather than beggars.

Results

85% sustained drop in begging
increase in arrests for drug supply
decline in residents identifying drug dealing as a problem
in the first 8 months twice the number of kerb crawlers arrested compared to whole previous year
120 prostitutes arrested in the first 8 months
£7,000 raised through diverted giving means.

Learning points:

political backing is necessary to make services more responsive
pay particular attention to messages going out in hard hitting advertising campaigns
think innovatively about solutions to problems and work in a co-ordinated, multi-agency way.

Beneficiaries

The community.

Resources used

A task force was set up combing police and council officers: staff increases were made to cleansing teams, waste collection teams, wardens, and funding allocated to undercover police officers.

Contact info

Nottingham City Council
Emma Julian (R4N Co-ordinator)

Project start date

//2003

Links

Visit the Regeneration East Midlands website

Download the 'Respect for Nottingham' Report (DOC, Eng, 92 KB)

Document type

case

Themes

Urban Policy

Keywords

Security & crime prevention, Social inclusion & integration