PCSOs unite with Bristol Council staff to make sure people clean up their act

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Bristol Police Community Support Officers have now been trained to join forces with Bristol City Council staff to target anti-social behaviour, which is damaging the local environment. As part of their duties the PCSOs will now be issuing fixed penalty fines for behaviour such as littering, dog fouling and fly posting.

“Local people tell us that their first concern is to keep their environment pleasant. PCSOs who are normally out and about as part of their jobs will be adding their efforts to tackle environmental anti social behaviour across the board.” said Cllr Gary Hopkins “Among their other duties they will be on the look out for chances to encourage and enforce people to behave responsibly and not to litter or otherwise spoil the local environment.” “And in the run up to Christmas with crowds of people in the city its even more important that we keep it a clean and great place to be”.

Neighbourhood Police Inspector Mark Runacres said, “The PCSOs play a vital role in policing Bristol and help to combat key problem areas such as anti-social behaviour and underage drinking freeing up police officers to deal with other issues. We know from our meetings with the local communities that keeping the area clean and tidy is a first concern. We know also that anti-social behaviour such as littering can lead to more extreme behaviour which has an impact on residents.”

Cllr Hopkins said: “We are pulling out all the stops to ensure that Bristol is one of the cleanest cities in the UK. As well as investing heavily in street cleaning we are also enlisting all the resources we have to keep Bristol a pleasant place to be.” For example we are also training staff from many Council departments such as cleansing, waste, environmental health and pest control, to advise and encourage better behaviour and to issue fixed term penalty fines of up to £75 on the spot.”

More than 40 new PCSOs began patrolling the streets of Bristol earlier this year thanks to £1. 2 million pounds worth of funding from Bristol City Council. This increased the numbers of PCSOs to 132 in the city, meaning that the number of PCSOs in the city has grown by over a third.

Councillor Hopkins said ” This extra Council funding to radically increase the number of PCSOs across the city demonstrated our commitment to work with the other partners in our neighbourhoods to make a safer city. But the money is only part of the story. What is essential is the extra training and joint tasking that helps us all tackle joint priorities. This is only one joint scheme at present that is showing results” said Cllr Hopkins.