Let's start by stating the obvious - Piccadilly Gardens is a blight on the city of Manchester. It is the busiest open public space in the city centre and the gateway to everything the city has to offer. The main train and tram station is next door with links to the airport and the world. Buses across the region terminate here. Nearly all visitors to the city centre walk through or by this public space. I dare not think of their impression of the city and what they tell their friends when they return home.
This location is infested with drugs, beggars, petty criminals and violent thugs. As long as I can remember it has been a hangout area for broken people with mental health issues. Street drinkers crowd into drinking circles until violence inevitably breaks out. People cutting through the area are offered drugs for sale or hassled by beggars. Drug dealers are replaced as quickly as they are arrested. And when the Mancunian sun finally makes an appearance, issues quadrupedal as shirtless men cause mayhem.
This is not a new problem. Piccadilly Gardens has always been a problem, albeit, not as bad as it is today. Do not fall for the rose-tinted myth that this location used to be a lovely quiet space with sunken gardens and flowerbeds. Forty years ago, when I first ventured into the city centre as a teenager, it was a place to avoid, just like today. The sunken gardens, now a long gone feature, attracted street drinkers and tramps, as well as office workers with their lunches.
As a council manager a decade ago, I had responsibility for the city centre and was responsible for reducing crime and antisocial behaviour. Piccadilly Gardens was the Number One hotspot a decade ago. It had the highest number of incidents of violent assaults and sexual assaults for the whole of Greater Manchester. At this time, we had issues with street drinking, drug dealing and antisocial groups. Exactly the same as today, except that begging was not an issue. Imagine begging not being an issue in Manchester city centre. How times have changed?
I was not short of resources to do my job. It was before austerity and the government budget cuts. I had a station full of police officers and council staff to direct. Did I succeed in my quest to change the area for the better? Obviously not. I failed for the same reason the area is still failing today – senior management and politicians are only interested in immediate results, not long-term solutions.
The issues in this area can be laid at the feet of the individuals who frequent the area - they do not know how to behave in a civilised society. Piccadilly Gardens attracts unsavoury characters by having the reputation that it attracts unsavoury characters – birds of a feather…..
We change this reputation by adequately policing the location; plain and simple. I understand the police have had budget cuts, but this issue is decades old and has never been properly tackled.
First of all, I need to state that the police do not understand antisocial behaviour and do not possess the expertise to tackle it. They understand crime, which is mainly a black-or-white matter. The council better understands antisocial behaviour and its nuances, but they have lost many staff with the experience - myself included.
Our attempts at solving this problematic location have always been driven by short-termism, meaning that the underlying problems are never addressed. So a few weeks of police presence reduces the issues and everyone is happy. But once the police pull out, everything goes back to normal.
Over 15 years ago, I created a fully comprehensive plan to tackle the issues in Piccadilly Gardens for the long term. It incorporated a triple-track approach of prevention, early intervention, and enforcement - using all the tools and partner agencies available to me as the Community Safety Coordinator.
I created a traffic light list of all known offenders who frequented the area.
RED: top 10 targets - to be prioritised by the police and council for enforcement action.
AMBER: 25 offenders who were likely to move into the top 10 at some point – to be persuaded through effective policing to socialise elsewhere.
GREEN: 40 low-level antisocial individuals – to be dealt with by the wider partnership and challenged accordingly.
We had approximately 75 individuals to deal with. Not a large number considering we had plenty of resources.
The key to my plan was not just proactive policing but new creative ways we would use partner agencies to contribute to the overall mission by using their unique powers in conjunction with our bag of tools.
The plan is too large to go through all aspects, but here is an example of how it was innovative and designed to change behaviour and improve the location.
Almost everyone targeted for enforcement action was claiming state benefits of some sort, mainly unemployment benefits. Meaning they had to hit certain criteria to claim such state handouts, such as actively seeking a job. Through CCTV and processional witness statements, we could prove that many were spending 12 hours a day in the Gardens and so not honouring their job seekers' contracts. I wanted to work with the Job Centre and challenge these individuals on the breaking of their contractual obligations to seek employment. I had meetings with the Job Centre, but they were not interested. I raised it with my Town Hall bosses for backup and support, but no one saw any value in it.
Imagine turning up to sign on and being quizzed about the vast amount of time spent in the Gardens instead of job hunting. How do you prove you were actively seeking employment when the evidence says you were not? You would risk losing your benefits, which means your housing benefit could be stopped and you could potentially lose your home. Would this be enough to change the behaviour of some? I would say Yes.
Social housing is great value for money but many people do not realise the power the Housing Officers have through the tenancy agreement. You can be evicted for causing issues in your neighbourhood. You can be evicted if people visit your home and cause issues for the community. No one wants to lose their home, especially if they have other family members living with them.
I wanted to redefine what was constituted as 'local' – I wanted to define the city centre as a local amenity for social housing tenancy agreements. I could then ask Housing Officers to come to Piccadilly Gardens and speak to their tenants about their behaviour, or be asked to attend an official tenancy warning interview at the housing office.
I wanted to use every tool available to put pressure on criminals and troublemakers. Put them on the back foot. Make them understand that there are consequences to negative behaviour. This approach still makes sense today, it would definitely work on the fake homeless beggars who have social housing. And why cannot we have immigration officers warning foreign nationals in the Gardens about their behaviour and potential deportation?
These ideas would be a beneficial add-on to effective policing and law enforcement, but they would never be a replacement for it. The heavy lifting would always have to be done by the police, who need the support of local politicians who ultimately dictate priorities.
Here is a quest for you, the next time you walk through the Gardens, look at the lamp posts. There are 'no alcohol' signs on many. How do I know? I put them there. But go to the Gardens on a sunny day and the whole place is full of alcohol. I spent two years trying to get the police to enforce this law, as advertised on the signs. The police asked me for the signs to make their job easier when challenging people who were drinking.
Many police officers did not understand that drinking alcohol sent out the wrong signal and contributed to the poor reputation of the area. If we allowed office workers to break the law by drinking red wine while eating their lunch on the grass, then it should be no surprise when a group of street drinkers turn up with bottles of white cider and cheap vodka. We have to be fair and consistent - one rule for all.
I had many disagreements with the police over the importance of a zero-tolerance approach. Some thought tackling street drinking and low-level antisocial behaviour was beneath them - it was not real policing. Other officers openly told me they were afraid to work in the Gardens, especially after one officer had his arm broken while arresting an individual in the middle of the day.
Trying to get police into the Gardens was a constant challenge and we had many more than we do today. When I did manage to get an officer in the Gardens as a visible presence and deterrent, they would leave as soon as they could - usually to deal with a teenager shoplifting in Primark. They would take any request on the radio to attend an incident rather than proactively patrol the Gardens which was hard dangerous work and usually entailed physically tackling someone.
My council bosses would get the police to crack down on the area every now and again when a negative story hit the local newspaper. They would arrest some drug dealers and issue a handful of litter fines. It was window dressing to dazzle the Press who would report the perceived success.
Another gimmick was the use of the police portacabin. It would appear in the Gardens after a serious incident or negative press attention. It is a large white portacabin with the police logo emblazoned across the front. It has a public reception area and a private section for officers only. No surprise, it immediately became a place for police officers to sit and relax - away from the gaze of the general public. It was a place where officers went to skive.
It is more effective to have hi-vis police officers stand in the middle of the gardens so everyone can see them. The visual presence of police officers reduces issues automatically - the portacabin did nothing to help. In fact, it did the opposite by removing police officers and hiding them. It was no deterrent. When it was placed near the Queen Victoria statue it created a little hide-away that was perfect for drug dealers to sell their product. This was the final straw, I got it removed.
Drug dealing is a massive problem in the Gardens, as it is countrywide. There is no point in trying to tackle this issue by targeting low-level dealers. Once arrested, they are replaced within the hour, and the situation is back to normal. A waste of time and resources - it can take months of undercover work to get the evidence needed to arrest a nobody.
We tackle drug dealing all wrong. Our time should be spent making the gardens a place where drug dealers do not wish to do business – we drive them out. We achieve this by hassling dealers and their customers on a daily basis. Not by running ad-hoc 'big bang' operations for the Press.
The police are not solely to blame for the state of this location. They need help to tackle antisocial behaviour and more importantly, they need political support to protect their backs when they do what needs to be done. Manchester council need to take some responsibility for it is their city centre's reputation that is being ruined.
I feel despondent every time I walk through Piccadilly Gardens and see how much it has deteriorated over the last decade. We never used to have people sleeping on the pavement or beggars on every corner.
We have created a Mancunian version of the failing downtown of San Francisco where the mentally ill and violent prone congregate to socialise, take drugs, get drunk, and slowly kill themselves while the world watches.
Workers, shoppers and visitors all walk past this public space and think: 'What the hell is going on?'
I ask myself this question every day.
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Hi Maxine - glad you enjoyed it.
This location is close to my heart for I see it as unfinished business, just like the rough sleeping problem. I could have solved both decades ago if given the chance and support.
But it is never too late to have a second go!
Thanks for supporting.
Nick
Excellent once again Nick.
I have to be honest, I was half expecting the details of your past approach, and your promised future approach, to be peppered with typical 'politician style' hot air.
But no, you have obviously given this subject a lot of intelligent thought, and you quite clearly have the personal experience to already know what could work, and also what doesn't work. You obviously also have the passion regarding this matter, to ensure your approach is successful too.
The Job Centre/housing link, brilliant!
And the alcohol 'ban', absolutely agree, it needs to be actually enforced.
However, could this not be enforced by council wardens rather than police? (obviously with police back up if needed).
Re police opting to avoid the area for their own personal reasons, 'scared' etc?
I would hope that the next Lord Mayor would address that particular shocking element of policing, when tackling the most worrying issue for Greater Manchester (in my opinion).
Rogue/criminal officers at GMP and their supporters/criminals at the GMCA.