Consultations and surveys Manchester City Centre PSPO Review 2023 Consultation

Details of Action Taken and Evidence of ongoing ASB

Summary of action taken 

Council and GMP officers have worked together in partnership to implement the PSPO alongside the use of a wide range of anti-social behaviour tools and powers including Community Protection Warnings and Notices, ASB Injunctions and Criminal Behaviour Orders, with positive requirements to attend the Street Engagement Hub. On introduction of the PSPO, officers engaged with those behaving anti-socially and offered appropriate support. If the behaviour persisted, warnings were used to gain compliance before escalation to enforcement. 

From 18 May 2021 to 31 August 2022 a total of 469 ASB PSPO interventions were recorded on the Council’s database. These interventions involved interactions with 210 people. The type of interventions were:

  • 222 verbal warnings
  • 205 confiscations of alcohol
  • 13 referrals to other agencies
  • 3 written warnings
  • 5 Fixed Penalty Notices.

Enforcement action has focussed on the issues that are most prevalent in the city, in particular alcohol for which there have been 371 interventions. Anecdotally, there are more occasions when GMP officers have sought compliance with the alcohol prohibition and made referrals during their daily patrols that are not captured within this dataset. On average people have received two interventions e.g. asked to stop drinking or handover their alcohol and a warning about drinking in the city centre in the future. A minority of people have received multiple interventions and their cases are considered separately to consider appropriate interventions beyond the PSPO.   

Waste offences under the PSPO only apply to commercial waste and are limited to  the commercial district and Northern Quarter in the city centre. However, officers have found that utilising the PSPO for escape of waste is beneficial in making an immediate positive impact on the area, as it supports the area being cleansed within a specified time period. We have found that there is overall compliance with these requests, without formal action, 169  PSPO interventions have been made with 17 PSPO Article 7 FPNs issued.  

Summary of continuing anti-social behaviours 

The police and council continue to receive reports relating to the anti-social behaviours in the PSPO; this will have been affected by the impact of (COVID) restrictions in the city centre that saw fewer incidents in the city centre when restrictions were in place and for a period after they were lifted. Direct comparisons of recent police data with information recorded by GMP before the PSPO was introduced are problematic, due to the introduction of a new IT system in mid-2019. The structure of this new system led to some information being recorded in different formats.  

The three year period October 2015 to September 2018 saw an average of 1155 incidents per year linked to drug use in the City Centre. The 12 month period October 2021 to September 2022 registered a count of 362 incidents. 

The biggest contributor to this overall reduction was a significant drop in the number of calls and complaints about spice. This was the most common factor in records up to September 2018 and one of the least significant during 2021/22. Calls about other drug-related issues showed smaller reductions, with calls about people taking drugs (non-specified) and smoking cannabis showing less change. 

Incidents describing people urinating or defecating have registered some reductions since the implementation of the PSPO, but still point to this issue being a concern. The period October 2015 to September 2018 saw a yearly average of 109 calls about people urinating and 27 about people defecating. Between October 2021 and September 2022 there were 75 calls about people urinating and 7 about people defecating in the City Centre.  

Analysis of GMP records of ASB from Sept 20 to August 22 have detailed the following: 

  • Over the past two years, 15% of face-to-face ASB incidents in the City Centre were flagged as having alcohol as a contributory factor (820 out of 5506 incidents)
  • The number of incidents linked more specifically to people drinking in public spaces is much smaller, at 133 reports over two years, but these have included a number of repeat locations (e.g., Parsonage Gardens, Sackville Gardens, Castlefield Arena) which indicate that this issue can have a significant impact on local communities
  • 650 out of 5506 ASB incidents over the two year period included the phrase “refusing to leave” in the message header of the record, and a further 142 included the phrase “refusing to move”
  • There were at least 88 reports of people blocking fire exits or escapes during the period, and 77 further reports of people blocking other entrances and exits. There were also 69 reports of people causing an obstruction in stairwells or on staircases (mainly inside car parks), but relatively few reports were identified of people blocking pavements
  • There have been 31 reports in the past two years, which reference tents being erected in public places but not all of these are linked to a specific health or safety risk. 

Read our proposed new PSPO for the city centre.

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