Outdoor drink ban for a friendlier Durham city
Aug 5 2008 by Neil Mckay, The Journal
ON-STREET drinking is to be banned in historic Durham City centre to crack down on bingers.
Figures compiled by County Durham Primary Care Trust show that more than one in four adults – 27.42% – regularly drink too much.
Only Newcastle (28.93%) and Middlesbrough (27.93%) have worse statistics in the North East. Visitors, workers and residents in the shadow of Durham’s World Heritage Site castle and cathedral daily walk past people drinking strong cider or beer in shop doorways and on seats in North Road, the Market Place, the bus station or along the riverbanks.
Now the city council is to introduce a Designated Public Places Order in the centre of Durham, including the city’s student area.
The order would allow the city council and police to designate places where restrictions on public drinking will apply, and let them confiscate alcohol in those areas.
Yesterday at a launch of the Durham and Chester-le-Street Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy, comprising police, council officials and health bosses, Durham City Council’s anti-social behaviour officer Gary Jackson said a city centre ban on street drinking was just weeks away.
He said: “It is simply a matter of going through the necessary procedures before the order can be enforced.”
Durham police inspector Paul Anderson blamed cheap supermarket alcohol for a marked increase in the amount of people are consuming.
He said: “In some supermarkets, it is cheaper to buy a can of beer than to buy a Mars Bar.
“That does concern us, especially when young people can access alcohol so easily.”
Care trust partnership and performance manager Iain Miller said: “The levels of binge drinking in the Durham and Chester-le-Street areas are well above the national average, which is concerning to all the agencies involved. The strategy focuses on how partners will benefit from a reduction in the number of people arrested for alcohol-related offences and less pressure being placed on NHS resources.
“By tackling these issues, the partnership hopes to promote a friendlier environment in local communities.”
He stressed that the aim of the strategy was to “educate people to drink sensibly, by going into schools, casualty wards and to warn people of the dangers to health of excessive drinking”.
