City centres are the only safe places left

AFTER the media recently highlighted the behaviour of a certain element of young people and also the incident where a man was stabbed to death for confronting youths damaging his property, I think it is time that the police and local authorities reviewed their policing policy of outlying districts and suburbs.

In Sheffield, we have ‘flagship’ city centres saturated with police community support officers (PCSOs) and street ambassadors who, accompanied by CCTV, are the eyes and ears of authority. They ensure loutish behaviour and aggression are stamped out.

This is all well and good, but what about the suburbs? Manor, Parson Cross, London Road, where drug users have started to congregate again. There is a real danger that outlying areas are being sacrificed in order to provide shining examples of pristine city centres, encouraging people to spend money.

I believe it is time to place PCSOs on patrol around suburban areas as a deterrent to unruly and violent disorder which, once again, threatens to overwhelm our streets.

I am aware of how funding affects policing, but surely CCTV in our city centre and a reduction in authoritarian patrols is sufficient.

We desperately need some form of deterrent on the streets again and the presence of ‘uniforms’ on patrol, whether PCSOs or council officers, is badly needed and long overdue.

A footnote to this: I notice that the council’s parking services patrol the outlying districts for illegally parked vehicles, swelling their coffers, so hopefully the council will exercise equal vigour in reducing anti-social behaviour and criminal activity in these areas too. A city is not just made up of a few square miles in the centre; all citizens have the right to live in relative safety and security and, at the moment, the only ‘safe’ places are in the city centres.

R Marshall, Goathland Road, Sheffield S13.