New £1m fund to give local communities the tools to tackle binge and underage drinking

A new £1 million fund to give local communities the tools they need to tackle binge and underage drinking has been announced by the Government’s Champion for Active Safer Communities,

Baroness Newlove. Baroness Newlove is a community campaigner based in the North West of England and was made a peer in July 2010. Since the death of her husband Garry at the hands of drunken teenagers in 2007, she has worked to make communities safer. In October 2010 she was appointed the Government Champion for Active Safer Communities and spent six months at the Home Office where she wrote her first report ‘Our vision for safe and active communities’.

The announcement of the new fund came on the day Baroness Newlove published her latest report ‘Building Safe, Active Communities: Strong foundations by local people’, which is a collection of inspiring, yet practical lessons from those who are changing their neighbourhoods for the better, providing good advice, and highlighting some of the barriers that have stifled their growth. In her interim report to Government published in July last year, Baroness Newlove identified tackling problem drinking as her most urgent priority and she will continue to focus sharply on this in the months ahead. This new fund will give ten successful communities - based on models of grassroots projects already delivering for their neighbourhoods - the resources to tackle the alcohol issue locally.

Newquay

One claimed success is Newquay Safe Partnership. This brings together local councils, police, health workers, the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board, businesses, tourist chiefs, town planners and local residents to share information and deliver action. In the past two years the partnership has taken steps to curb the use of fake IDs, has prosecuted proxy buyers and targeted campaigns aimed at young people urging them to be responsible and for parents not to supply alcohol to children. Since 2009, the Cornish resort has seen an average fall of almost 30 percentage points in recorded antisocial and ‘rowdy’ behaviour.

Baroness Newlove said:

“I am sick of the harm caused by those young people who put themselves and others at risk from illegal drinking. The crime and antisocial behaviour that comes in its wake is a terrible blight on this country. It destroys the quality of life of innocent people and in the process sucks up huge amounts of public funding to repair the damage done to people and places.

“We need a new drinking culture in this country. I want to see responsible drinking, so we can rid our streets of drunken violence and intimidation. We need direct, effective action on the ground to make a difference, and make ‘sociable drinking’ the acceptable norm. This will not be achieved overnight, I realise. But we need to take action now and I am very pleased that the Government will shortly publish a long-term strategy on alcohol.

The report can be found at:
www.communities. gov.uk/publications/ communities/ buildingsafecommunities