Veni vidi vomi

The government's own suggestion that extended drinking hours will reduce disorder and disturbance is not a view shared by those with immediate experience of the problems.

Here Doctor Sarah Webb, a retired GP and resident of Bath, tells of the situation in that city. Then we look at work being undertaken in the City of Westminster to combat the problem.

This amusing graffiti, fading but still legible on the wall of the Roman Baths, is very apt.

Bath, this beautiful city of hot mineral springs, Roman remains, and Georgian terraces which have earned it World Heritage status, was once known as the Queen City of the West.

But Bath has its dark side. There is an aspect of Bath that the day trippers never experience – and it is something that never occurs to anyone planning to move to Bath, or even to spend a few nights in one of the city's central hotels. Neither does it enter the minds of patients when they are sent to the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, which is sited right in the centre of Bath.

It is alcohol related noise and disorder, it happens in the middle of the night, and it disturbs 76 per cent of the population. People across the district who know about the problem do not feel safe using the city centre at night.

Since Roman times Bath has been a place of entertainment as well as being a residential town. Modern entertainment has spread beyond the traditional daytime and evening activities. Now it is loud music with young people dancing and drinking in this deafening atmosphere until two in the morning, six nights out of seven. And they do not leave quietly! As soon as they spill out onto the streets their voices, from chatter to laughs, shouts and screams, are magnified by the flat hard surfaces of the Georgian houses and narrow walk ways, where there are no trees or hedges to absorb sound as it penetrates people's bedrooms. The city centre is acoustically 'bright'. Residents are unable to double-glaze their windows as nearly all the buildings in the conservation area are listed. The old glass, or what is left of it, is too delicate to act as a sound barrier.

My partner and I discovered the problem the first night we slept in Bath. We had bought a flat in a lovely Georgian house, close to Bath Abbey. It was the fulfilment of a lifelong ambition – to live in this wonderful city. We were expecting noise when the pubs shut at eleven, and did not expect the quiet of the suburbs. What we did not know was that there were nightclubs in Bath, and so we did not anticipate the yelling, crashes, and sounds of fighting that happened later in the night, with a crescendo just after two. This unexpected noise, which was often frightening to hear, turned out to be a regular occurrence every Friday and Saturday night, with some on Monday to Thursday nights too. Only Sunday was peaceful – a blessed relief! We did not know then it was because nightclubs could not open that night.

I rang the police the first few times, but I do not know if they ever came. I never saw any. They certainly failed to show up during the time I was watching from the bedroom – and I am sure most of the trouble makers would have easily melted away into the narrow passage ways at the sight of a police car.

In the mornings there would be the evidence of drinking – vomit splattered pavements, doorways running with urine, broken windows, smashed bottles, bits of cars pulled off, fast food debris, and empty cans everywhere littering the streets. Occasionally there were spots of blood.

After a while I gave up ringing the police at night – and it was a relief not to have to drag myself awake to start dialling. Our attitude hardened – did we really care if they bashed each other?

Then one night two years ago at half past two one morning, a good looking young man all but died. It appeared that three youths took a dislike to him as he walked past them and decided to give him a good hiding. As he lay on the ground they kicked his head so hard he is permanently scarred and brain damaged as a result. All of them had been drinking.

The attack took place right beside the Abbey and the Roman Baths, just below our sitting room window. The next day we started to meet neighbours and decided the violence had to stop. We realised that we did care after all. The police, ever anxious to reduce fear of crime, played the incident down by announcing in the local paper that Bath was safe, encouraging youngsters to keep coming in at night.

The truth was that violence was increasing, with the youngsters themselves in the high-risk category. Surely police should have been trying to increase their fear of crime? Residents formed a group that eventually became the Abbey Residents Association, with the objectives of promoting residents' rights and making our environment safer and more peaceful. It seemed that the city centre residents had been ignored for too long.

At first it was assumed the culprits had been in a nearby club with a 2 a.m. licence, but we soon found that there were eleven other nightclubs, with a combined capacity of 3,500, all crammed into the heart of Bath in a central strip measuring 800 by 400 metres. No wonder there was so much trouble. Bath had produced its very own alcohol hot spot, its stress area, and the crime figures to prove it . This 'strip' is not a commercial zone where night noise does not matter. It is packed with people trying to sleep, about 2,000 of us in fact.

World Heritage City had become, and still is, clubland at night.

Some say it is the volume of students in Bath (with two Universities and a College there are around 12,000 of them) that has generated the numbers of clubs and late pubs, although there is a mix of young people being drawn in to the centre at night from across the district. They can be seen pouring out of the bus and train stations in the early weekend evenings, making for the 70 or so pubs to get tanked up before going on to clubs to complete the process of becoming ratted, trolleyed – too true in some cases. There have been many casualties, even deaths. One night drunken revellers caused a car to swerve into a young couple, tourists on their first visit to Bath, killing the husband. In an earlier incident, a man was killed for trying to protect his girlfriend from abuse by a drunken youngster.

Abbey residents, being in the front line, joined the Federation of Bath Residents' Associations, FOBRA, to try and improve the situation. First and foremost, everyone agrees that there are never enough police on foot to deter trouble. Secondly, there are too few CCTV cameras in the city with many danger areas still not covered. The cameras are a poor deterrent to drunks, but they save a lot of police time identifying culprits who tend to plead guilty when faced with video proof.

But the real cause of the problem is alcohol being on offer after 11p.m. in a residential city.

Alcohol can only be sold after this time if it is adjunct to a meal or the licensee holds an entertainment licence. These are renewed annually by the Council regardless of the growing noise and disturbance developing in Bath as a result.

In March 2001 Bath nightclubs applied to open on Sunday nights under the new deregulation rules (extending Sunday hours from 10.30 p.m. to 12.30 a.m.) – but fortunately for residents the government, thanks to the House of Lords, had put in protection clauses recognising that Sunday is Special. By being persistently vocal about the disturbances residents were experiencing, by using video footage demonstrating noisy Saturday and silent Sunday nights in the centre of town, and by insisting on protection of our Human Rights, we managed to persuade the Council to refuse Sunday entertainment licences, and to adopt a policy not to grant them. Two clubs slipped through the net, but have not opened on Sundays because they were refused Special Hours Certificates (for alcohol) by Licensing Magistrates in order to protect residents and hospital patients. So we still have peaceful Sunday nights here in Bath.

But for how long? In the government White Paper, Time for Reform, which seems to have been written by the breweries, Sunday protection has gone. Apparently it is to be treated like any other day in this multicultural society. The fact is, however , that most people start their working week on Monday, and expect a decent night's sleep beforehand. Everyone needs a break – especially residents who have been kept awake for nights on end.

Another myth being promoted in the White Paper is that all the noise happens at club closing time so extending hours will bring peace. Here in Bath the noise starts at 11pm when youngsters leave pubs and wander around choosing which noisy nightclub queue to join. Bit by bit they leave the clubs for take away food and taxis. They don't all stay in the clubs until closing time, so noise is intermittent and erratic from 11pm to 3am (it takes an hour for the taxis to clear the backlog).

Letting the clubs stay open later will simply prolong the noise. This is already happening in Bath.

Another big worry in Bath is that the Council will have all the responsibility for licensing. Their track record has been patchy as far as residents are concerned. One pub applied for a later licence next door to a nightclub (owned by the same licensee) that was already causing disturbance in the immediate neighbourhood.

Evidence of that noise was discounted by the Councillors because it did not come from the pub in question. They also ignored a petition begging them to refuse permission, signed by most of the residents in the vicinity. The licence was granted for the three noisiest nights – Thursday Friday and Saturday. Defending their decision, they told a local newspaper that they could not risk refusal, as there would probably be an appeal that could lead to the Council incurring costs. So, money rules.

Another pub that has a six day 2 a.m. licence has held on to it despite causing serious disturbances to hotel guests and residents close by. Three times the Council renewed the licence despite objections. On the latest occasion it was challenged, the licence was trimmed to 11p.m. on the three quiet nights, Monday to Wednesday. They can continue to operate until 2 a.m. on all six nights until their appeal is heard, which may be six months away. It will be hard to defend when all the evidence presented to the Council related to Friday and Saturday nights.

Residents are alarmed at the possibility of 24 hour licensing being in the hands of Councillors as they have already favoured extended nightlife. Since May 2000 the Council has been granting 24 hour licences to some nightclubs. The public was told that it was a twelve month 'trial' expected to reduce the 2 a.m. disorder. The disorder increased by 26 per cent, but the licences were never revoked. Now it emerges that it was introduced on economic grounds, to help Bath's clubs compete with those in Bristol. Another reason the clubs wanted longer hours was the anticipated extension of pub hours likely to follow from the White Paper recommendations. Nightclubs argued that their trade would be affected, and that they would need later hours to compensate.

The result of these later licences is that now there is noise penetrating into the once silent part of the night: 3 - 5am.

The argument is made that the night economy brings money into the city. It finds its way into a few pockets admittedly, but there are costs. The Abbey needs to repair leaded lights about six times a year. Much of the glass in the city dates from the 1700's and should be replaced by hand made glass. Sadly this happens rarely. Roman Glass, the principle glazier doing night calls in Bath, has to repair windows six times a week on average – typical cost £360 for the call out boarding up, and then the repair itself. The company uses standard new cheap glass. Commercial plate glass windows are very expensive to replace, and yet shopkeepers cannot use grilles because they are in the Conservation Area. For smaller businesses insurance costs soar. My car, one of many hundreds parked overnight in the streets, has had over £300 worth of damage by vandals in the past year – and the damage is always on the pavement side where people walk by pulling off wing mirrors or denting the doors during brawls.

Next there is the cost of running emergency services through the night, ferrying casualties to the hospital. Medical costs, like those incurred by the young man who was saved by Bristol's neurosurgeons and intensive care team, are difficult to estimate but must run into thousands. Then there are the legal costs involved in prosecuting drunken yobs, not to mention the expense of their Legal Aid which tax payers fund for their defence.

The street cleaning machines have to be sent out at five in the morning if the clean up is to be complete before the tour buses start arriving. The noise of these machines is not too welcome in a city that has only just gone quiet after the revellers have left.

Finally, the police have to cover the night disorder by taking officers off day duties, and one wonders about the cost of the riot van, sorry – Community Safety Vehicle, with nine officers ready for battle.

Why do we stay here? Well, it is still a beautiful city. The festival, which is on as I write, is magnificent, and the streets are packed with people enjoying themselves visiting restaurants, shops, and museums, admiring the splendid buildings, and going to listen to sublime music in the evenings. I dream of bye-laws to keep people quiet after midnight, of licensees being penalised for polluting the city with noise, of a resurgence of traditional pub life, and an end to the current drunken madness that goes unchecked in the small hours. Hey ho.

The graffito which supplies the title to Dr Webb's article succinctly illustrates not only the reality of night life in that city but also draws attention to the lamentable standard of classical education among the revellers. Readers of Alert will, of course, be aware that vomui, not vomi, is the first person singular, perfect tense of vomere, to vomit. Pedants will leap to point out that the rare first conjugation verb, vomitare, with its implication of a repeated action, is perhaps more apt in the case of the streets of Bath.

AIV