Community Safety Partnership

SafeAyr

The SafeAyr project brings together a range of initiatives to make Ayr town centre a safer and more attractive place to go out over a weekend.

The project is led by the Violence Multi Agency Joint Action Group of the Community Safety Partnership (CSP). The project also operates in parallel with the initiatives of the Safer Scotland and Strathclyde Police Violence Reduction campaigns.

Background
The pilot SafeAyr project ran for a period of 6 weeks from 16/06/06 to 31/07/06. As a result of this the Joint Action Group (JAG) looked carefully at the available data and identified the key violence “hotspots” occurring on Friday and Saturday nights as the first area for action. Although Ayr was one of the safer towns, for people enjoying the “night time economy”, a number of incidents had occurred. Due to the success of the initiative, funding has been provided from the Scottish Executive towards the CSP 3-year strategy (2005 – 2008) with substantial in–kind resources being provided by partner agencies. Strathclyde Police contributes substantial staff time and additional resources. Extra funding has also come from the South Ayrshire Council Civic Pride budget, the Joint Police Board and more recently Safer Streets Scotland.
An analysis of the problems showed some key factors:

Numbers of people leaving licensed premises in the early hours of the morning
Numbers of people leaving catering outlets in the early hours of the morning
Numbers of people trying to get home after buses/trains had ceased services
Numbers of people congregating at certain taxi ranks and other ranks not being used
Disorder at ranks leading to incidents of verbal abuse and violence
Effects of alcohol/drugs fuelling these incidents
Assaults on taxi drivers
“Cruisers” moving from the seafront to Boswell Park, adding to the disorder and causing obstruction
The same “Cruisers” causing obstruction for the emergency services
Numbers of young people on the streets who have come out of pubs and/or can’t get into clubs
A variety of antisocial behaviour including vandalising plant tubs and urinating in doorways or on the street
Small incidences of people carrying weapons e.g. knives

Statistics also showed that people came from a wide geographical area to enjoy a night in Ayr town centre. Any SafeAyr initiatives, therefore, needed to be publicised in North and East Ayrshire and even in Glasgow. Development of the SafeAyr project involved research with similar initiatives such as NiteZone, Glasgow and Safer Cities Initiative, Stirling. Consultative meetings were held with interested parties i.e. taxi drivers, private hire operators, licensees and town centre businesses. This eventually led to the formation of the existent SafeAyr JAG.

Aims

The aims of the SafeAyr project are:

To reduce the number of violent incidents in Ayr town centre on Friday and Saturday nights
To target potential hotspots of disorder around the taxi ranks
To improve the public’s perception of safety in Ayr town centre
To increase usage of all taxi ranks
To increase awareness of acceptable behaviour by establishing a taxi etiquette
To increase the detection rate of crimes committed in Ayr town centre
To facilitate police and emergency services’ response to incidents

The main elements of the SafeAyr initiative are:

The SafeAyr JAG
The provision of taxi/toilet marshals
The introduction of traffic restriction orders
The organising of taxi ranks
Addressing environmental issues i.e. street cleaning/bins etc
The provision of public toilet facilities
The provision of a town centre mobile Police office
Enhanced lighting
The extension of the initiative to the Smith Street taxi rank
The Projection project
An ongoing publicity campaign
Extra policing resources

The SafeAyr initiative has ongoing project evaluations:

Taxi survey
Town centre survey
SafeAyr evaluation summary 2006
Safe and sensible
SafeAyr Xmas evaluation 2007

Projects within the SafeAyr zone

Taxi Marshals
Six marshals are employed between the hours of 23.00 and 04.00 on Friday and Saturday nights. 3 of these control the Boswell Park taxi rank, 2 are located at Smith Street and a toilet marshal maintains order outside the Arthur Street public toilets. They are all provided by Rock Steady security. Their role is to manage the queue in the taxi ranks, promote the taxi “etiquette” and provide relevant public information.

Traffic Restriction Order
A traffic restriction, for the busiest area around Boswell Park, came into force on 28th April, 2006. This restricts access to taxis, private hires and emergency vehicles and allows easier access in the event of an incident as well as reducing over-crowding.

Environmental Improvements
Various “clean-up” measures are ongoing in the drive to improve and maintain a tidy and clean town centre. Extra bins are allocated in identified litter hotspots and are emptied in the early evening in preparation for the night-time economy. As well as removing all the rubbish, the availability of potential weapons, such as discarded glass bottles, is avoided. Recent improvements involving the mechanical removal of chewing gum from the pavements have started in Arthur Street and Boswell Park.

Toilet Facilities
The lack of accessible public toilets was identified as a contributory problem to disorder within the town centre. To address this problem, the public toilets in Arthur Street are now open between the hours of 23.00 and 03.00 on Friday and Saturday nights and are monitored by a Toilet Marshal.

Police
A mobile Police Office is situated in the Boswell Park car park between 23.00 and 04.00 on Friday and Saturday nights. This provides a highly visible presence and offers revellers re-assurance. It is staffed by two Police officers who can deal with the range of problems the public may encounter. South Ayrshire Sub Division also provides additional resources during peak periods of the year.

Publicity
Taxi

When the initiative began, posters and small cards were distributed through schools, youth and community groups, colleges and the general public. Publicity is now ongoing through various mediums; local and pan-Ayrshire news articles appear quarterly, launching any new initiatives, in the area; information posters are displayed in licensed premises, town centre catering outlets and internally within both taxis and taxi offices; advertising of the SafeAyr message has been applied to the external surface of a taxi; a projector has been installed on top of a lamppost in Boswell Park with the aim of delivering a new and innovative method of communicating public information. In the summer of 2007, the SafeAyr initiative featured on STV news.

Safe and Sensible
The main aim of the project was to raise awareness of sensible drinking levels and the health implications of binge drinking, along with a greater understanding of alcohol units. The project also aimed to raise awareness of safety within Ayr town centre and in particular, of the SafeAyr Initiative within the female target group. The information was relayed via the medium of email and was conducted on behalf of Ayrshire Drug Action Team (A.D.A.T).

Evaluation
Evaluation is ongoing and feedback sessions are held regularly with licensees, staff from catering outlets and taxi and private hire operators at the JAG meetings. The Police compare previous crime statistics against recent ones to highlight the key indicators identified from the “problem solving process”. Questionnaires are collected quarterly from the general public involved in the night-time economy while they are out in the town centre.

For further information or enquiry please contact:

Inspector Bob Smith, Chair SafeAyr JAG
email: bob.smith@strathclyde.pnn.police.uk

Chris Campbell, Community Safety Project Officer
Tel No: 01292 616600, email: chris.campbell@south-ayrshire.gov.uk