Welcome to Community Alcohol Partnerships

Tower Hamlets

The CAP area was plagued with antisocial behaviour and relatively high ambulance calls for alcohol-related incidents. Specific identified problems included underage alcohol consumption in public spaces and housing estates, street drinking and a general lack of awareness on how to prevent underage sales among local retailers. Managing anti-social behaviour related to alcohol was considered a priority within the area for the Metropolitan Police.

Date established: April 2014

Key partners:

Metropolitan Police, Trading Standards (TS) and Licensing Teams, Tower Hamlets Enforcement Officers (THEOS) , Local schools, Housing associations, RASG members with lead retailers for the area being Sainsbury’s and Tesco
 
Actions taken:

• 820 secondary students from 3 secondary schools surveyed at the outset to determine drinkingpatterns and how/wherestudents obtained alcohol

• Membership of the local“Underage Sales and Responsible Retailers Scheme”
increased from 55 to 155 licensed premises, all of whom were offered free training on preventing underage sales

• Drinkaware parents’ campaign materials used in ‘Parents Matter’ newsletter and parenting
information sessions delivered in CAP area secondary schools

• Regular patrols carried out in “hotspot” areas and housing estates

• Review Panel introduced for licensees who failed a test purchase

• Secondary schools introduced policies to prevent students in uniform from entering
problematic off licences

• Mobile unit workshops deployed in designated “hotspot” areas, resulting in engagement with 100 local youngsters

• Youth Employment Project piloted with two cohorts of young people who were not in employment, education or training (NEETs) leading to a Level 1 Certificate in Employability and two weeks work experience in Sainsbury’s

Impact: 

• After 6 months, anti-social behaviour reports fell by 46% in the CAP area
• Number of alcohol seizures decreased by 87% in 2014 in the CAP area
• Youth disorder decreased by 80%

 

 

In this section:

CAP acts as a great catalyst to broaden community safety partnership working. The involvement of retailers and others to take personal responsibility for their communities can introduce different thinking and innovation to effectively resolve local issues that impact adversely on people’s lives.

Chief Inspector David Pennings
Northamptonshire Police
2015

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