Praise as anti-social behaviour incidents drop
Reporter: Dawn Marsden
Date published: 29 September 2010
Oldham’s youngsters hailed by police boss
OLDHAM’S chief of police has praised the town’s youngsters for helping to cut anti-social behaviour rates for the second year running.
In the period covering this year’s summer holdiays — from July 12 to September 12 — there was been a 45 per cent drop in incidents compared with the same period in 2008.
Chief Supt Tim Forber said: “These results show that by working together with our young people and the wider community, we can tackle the issues that matter most to our residents.
“I hope that the public feel reassured by this success and will continue to work with us to make Oldham a safer, more pleasant place to live.”
Thousands of young people got involved in a host of activities organised by Oldham Council as part of the Go Oldham project.
At the same time, neighbourhood policing teams increased patrols in hotspot areas and anti-social behaviour officers went on the beat to speak to young people about the consequences of their behaviour.
Councillor Rod Blyth, Cabinet member for community safety and public protection, said: “These figures are really encouraging and clearly show that by working together with the police, housing providers, community and voluntary groups we can have a positive impact on our residents’ quality of life.
“Young people regularly tell us they have nothing to do, so by investing in a co-ordinated programme of activities we have taken a more proactive and sustainable approach to steering them away from anti-social behaviour.
“Go Oldham is now an all-year-round programme which I believe is a measure of how successful and how effective it has become in engaging young people in positive activities.
“Our young people are setting a glowing example to adults and I urge them to take note.
“The reality is that we receive more reports of adult-related anti-social behaviour such as noisy neighbours, loud music, and drunk and rowdy behaviour than we do complaints about youngsters.”
