Debicki told: police the streets

Blackpool councillors have recommended an increase in police numbers on the streets! Huzzah!

Shockingly though, it was revealed today that there are only between 2 and 6 police officers and PCSOs patrolling the town centre at any one time during weekend daytime. Given that they tend to walk around in pairs of one officer and one PCSO, this means that at the most there are only 3 real police officers in the town centre. Hardly enough to take on Cookson Street never mind Central Drive.

Now don’t get me wrong, all town councils have bad areas to deal with but they at least compensate by trying to renovate, revamp, and even demolish dens of antisocial activity. Look at Manchester’s continued revamp, stretching into its Northern Quarter. What was a neglected, derelict zone has – due to renovation and incentivisation – become a hotspot for trendy bars.

But this is Blackpool, whose council prefers to blow cash hand over fist on non-justifiable, self invested, much publicised construction projects rather than take on the drug dealing, intimidation and violence ingrained in grim areas.

There is, however, only so far you can polish a turd. Central Drive remains a crime ridden slum that would be better served by a few cluster bombs followed by napalming the entrance of the post office to mop up any stragglers than any level of policing and policy, but nontheless it would be nice to see the council take a look at areas like this and how crime is permitted to thrive by their inaction in conjunction with nonexistant levels of policing.

Indeed, one great hope of mine was that the council would remove that jot on the landscape that is Talbot Road bus station. The opportunity was there to be taken in drawing up the plans for the Talbot Gateway and I was sold that the bus station would go. But the council made the decision that this haven of drug dealing and sex offences is to remain as a home for the travelling criminal fraternity – and I don’t just mean the traffic wardens.

But the police are as much to blame. Whilst the council have failed to assist the police in leaving bad areas to deteriorate, the police have failed if they can only muster 3 police officers during weekend daytime and – according to figures shown in today’s Gasjet – “at least” 15 officers and PCSOs in the evenings at weekends. I’d beg to differ. Queen Street and Talbot Square are overloaded with officers looking for a fight every Friday and Saturday night but when they should be redeployed in the daytime as crime prevention and reassurance, they’re sat in a Ford Galaxy sniping at motorists with a silly camera.

I’d like to see the figures for weekdays as well as weekends: I suspect the policing level is closer to zero officers and two PCSOs (with a couple of highly paid and highly trained mounted police pottering around in empty out of town car parks every day).

But this is the same Blackpool where two people were able to walk through security with full climbing gear, climb to the top of Blackpool Tower and then abseil down it completely unnoticed. This is the same Blackpool where on the one hand you have police chiefs announcing a drop in violent crime and then just under a month later the town is labelled as the violent crime capital of the north west by the Home Office. It’s the same Blackpool where Chief Superintendent Richard Debicki was publically hammered by residents because of slow 999 response times and lack of attention to drunken disorderly behaviour.

If Blackpool wants to come across as a safe holiday town for families, it’s going to need to do something about the perception that it is an unsafe place. Instead of having random crackdowns on the Crime du Jour or devoting 50 police officers to pointless ring of steel exercises, there should be a vastly increased presence of at least 8 real police officers in town and 8 PCSOs if necessary. I’d prefer 16 real police, of course.

As well as this the place needs to be secure for locals. The less busy it gets and the more derelict buildings there are the less safe people feel and the less safe they are. Neglect breeds criminality, but fortunately for criminals the police and council are just as guilty as they are.