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Press Release

Camden Town Controlled Drinking Zone To Continue

18 January 2006

People in Camden Town will continue to benefit from a Controlled Drinking Zone (CDZ) to reduce street drinking after a pilot scheme showed overwhelming support.

Camden Council agreed last night (17 January) to make the pilot CDZ in Camden Town a permanent scheme, while a proposal for a borough-wide zone to tackle all anti-social drinking is being developed.

Throughout the pilot scheme residents, businesses and visitors to Camden Town were asked what they thought about the pilot CDZ. In August 2005 just over eight in ten people agreed with the council’s approach to dealing with street drinkers. All stakeholders, who included the police, residents inside the zone and Housing Managers also gave their support to the CDZ and wanted it to carry on.

Under the pilot scheme, police officers were given a discretionary power to remove alcohol from street drinkers drinking on the streets in the zone. Camden Council gave an additional £35,000 from the government’s Liveability fund towards funding a wet service to provide extra support and advice to help street drinkers break the cycle of alcohol dependency.

An evaluation of the year-long scheme showed a large reduction in street drinking on the streets and estates as well as a high increase in hardcore street drinkers accessing help and housing.

Cllr Jake Sumner, Executive Member for Community Safety at Camden Council said: “The Controlled Drinking Zone has helped long-term street drinkers in Camden Town get help for their addiction - which benefits both them and the community. People have recognised the CDZ as a common sense approach to a difficult problem. We’re now looking at how a CDZ could work for the whole borough to tackle all types of anti-social street drinking.”

A proposal on a borough-wide CDZ will be taken to the council’s Executive meeting in April 2006. If the Executive give the go-ahead, the council would then look to implement a borough-wide CDZ around four to six weeks from this date to complete the necessary legal requirements. Initial ideas in the proposal include letting communities decide whether they want police to tackle street drinking in their area, once the ward-based police Safer Neighbourhoods teams are in place.



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Camden Council

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