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23
Sept
Starbeck business owner calls for action on anti-social behaviour
A Starbeck business owner has issued a “formal request” for a public meeting to discuss how best to tackle anti-social behaviour in the area.
The plea comes after the local police community support officer (PCSO), Mark Emsley, posted on social media that he would be engaging with local residents at an event tomorrow (Wednesday) morning.
PCSO Emsley wrote:
I’ll be down on Spa Road with our mobile police station from 1030 on the 24th September doing some door knocks and speaking to local residents if poss. Representatives from the community safety hub, parks department from the council and from Fern House will also be attendance.
Fern House is a council-run homeless people’s hostel on Spa Road and has been named by local residents as the source of much of the anti-social behaviour they are concerned about, including drug-taking, shoplifting, and even public sex acts.
Andrew Hart, who owns The Red Box on the High Street, has written to PCSO Emsley to request a public meeting instead of the mobile police station event.
In his email he wrote:
With the greatest respect, holding a mobile office surgery and a ‘door knock’ on a weekday morning is far from ideal. Most residents of that area will be out working, and it will not give other residents and retailers of the wider area an opportunity to record their experiences and concerns.
I therefore formally request that this proposed event is changed into a public meeting held on a weekday evening at about 7pm at St Andrew’s.
The Red Box on the High Street.
He added that the meeting should also be attended by the safer communities officer, a senior police officer, PCSO Emsley, local councillors and representatives from Fern House.
He copied in the Stray Ferret, Tom Gordon MP, the policing, fire and crime team at York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority, and Cllr Chris Aldred, whose High Harrogate and Kingsley division takes in the part of Starbeck on the Harrogate side of the railway line.
Referring to a public meeting about the issue three years ago, Mr Hart told the Stray Ferret:
Absolutely nothing came out of that particular meeting other than excuses, quotations of data protection and human rights.
Since then, matters have become much worse. Starbeck is booming with new housing, new shops and strong investment. There is no reason why anyone living, working or trading in Starbeck should have to tolerate the criminal and anti-social behaviour of a few mindless people.
Shoplifting, verbal abuse, drugs, discarded needles, drink and violence are not welcome in the new Starbeck.
He said that he would like to see any public meeting become a quarterly fixture “so that we can pin people down and ensure this doesn’t get ignored any longer”.
He added:
We need to get on top of all this, because it’s out of control. Enough is enough, we deserve sustained action to stop it.
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