Only 54
At the last Council meeting I asked how many staff were in the community protection group. The CPG is the group within the council tasked with enforcing things like dog fouling, littering and some parking offences such as parking on the zig zag lines outside a school.
There are 54 staff in the CPG. There are 21 wards so that makes just over 2.5 staff per ward. The Safer neighbourhood team in High Barnet have 9 staff who could be enforcing these powers. When I asked how many of the CPG staff were street based the number goes down even further because the CPG staffing includes CCTV operators, admin and technical staff. This means that the Council has effectively no staff in High Barnet who are capable of enforcing these laws. Even if they did the Council does not possess the means to issue penalty tickets for these offences. In other words much of the minor but ant-social activities that take place in High Barnet are not in any way controlled. The police who have the resources are not allowed to because the council has reserved the powers for itself. This urgently needs review if we are to have any sanction against the small minority of people who act in an anti-social manner.
i’m new to the area having moved in just before christmas, and have already been welcomed by one of the friendly young chaps outside the Tesco Metro opposite the Odeon Cinema who acted in a very threatening way to my girlfriend and I while we were walking the dog, then followed us around tescos and said if he saw us in the area again… something bad would happen.
The problem is in the current society there is no incentive for me to report this; at best he will get a slap on the wrist and we would be left to deal with the repercussions. What really can we do about these sorts of antisocial behaviour, which ultimately are a much greater concern than parking on zig zags and dog littering (i use a pooper scooper thanks).
Also is this kind of behaviour common in the area?
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