Issue - meetings

The Assembly received this report introduced by Councillor Butt, Cabinet Member for Crime and Enforcement, relating to a byelaw to prohibit skateboarding in Arboretum Place and the Town Square.

Members raised concerns as to the criminalising of young people.

Councillor Alexander made the following points:

·  There is a park at Castle Green that the young people do not want to use as they say the surface in the Town Centre is better.

·  The skaters frighten residents by riding towards them and then swerving at the last minute.

·  They stay in the town centre until 11/11.30 at night.

The Leader of the Council, in agreeing with Councillor Alexander’s points, said this was a matter of social responsibility; that the young people had been given ample opportunity to work with the community but had chosen not to. 

In responding to Members’ questions, the Cabinet Member thanked Councillor Alexander and emphasised that it was the surface that attracted the skateboarders and that many were teenagers coming from outside the borough.

Officers further advised that whilst enforcement would be as a matter of course, someone would have to have seen the offence taking place, so generally it would come to the Council as the result of a complaint.  Initially, though, the skateboarders would be asked to move on.

The Assembly agreed to approve the byelaw agreed by the Department for Communities and Local Government set out at Appendix 2 to the report, authorise its sealing and proceed with the necessary steps to complete its making as a byelaw of the Council.