Sound progress has been made at Taunton Deane MP Rebecca Pows' second anti-social behaviour forum, held at her Taunton office on Friday with relevant stakeholders. The meeting follows the inaugural session she held in September. 

In the run-up to the festive period, Rebecca Pow MP wanted to ensure progress was being made to crack down on the spate of concerning anti-social behaviour incidents that many retailers across the town have suffered, including break ins, thefts and threatening behaviour to staff. 

Avon and Somerset Police; Somerset County Council; Taunton Town Council; Taunton Pubwatch and local business representatives attended the meeting.

Local MP Rebecca Pow said:

“Building on our inaugural meeting I felt it was important to hold a follow-up meeting to focus on actions that can be taken to ensure our businesses can operate safely and confidently and that those supporting our shops and local enterprises feel safe too especially in the run up to Christmas. 

I outlined the range of new Anti-Social Behaviour measures in the Government’s recently announced Criminal Justice Bill which will give local authorities the powers and tools they need to tackle this behaviour quickly and effectively. I also took the opportunity to set-out some of the feedback received through my office’s ongoing survey of independent businesses.

It was a productive meeting highlighting that partnership working is critical with all involved playing their part, sharing information and acting appropriately. I urge anyone experiencing an incident to ensure that they report it to the police, so that the data is captured. Retailers made it clear that the system needs to be straightforward and quick and that they expect the police to respond effectively. I was pleased to hear from the Avon & Somerset police community officers present at the meeting that there are now more police officers on the streets following the spate of incidents we saw over the summer.

There of course remains much more to do. It transpires that some of those allegedly responsible regrettably includes a youth element, a number of them being young women, and I agreed to engage with our hardworking local headteachers and other youth leaders to draw this to their attention with a view to influencing behaviour. 

More widely, the Pubwatch model, used by many local pubs and the hospitality trade to inform one another of antisocial behaviour activities in the town is working well, and as a result of our meeting this model will be explored with a view to setting up a similar system for retail outlets. I also proposed exploring the possibility of setting up a Business Crime Reduction Partnership with the South West Business Crime Centre and I’ve invited Taunton Town Council to join me in a meeting with them.”