Order intended to tackle street drinking "magnified the problem": report

A designated public place order (DPPO) introduced in Barnsley’s town centre to tackle street drinking only served to magnify the problem, the Yorkshire Post has reported.

The order gave police the power to confiscate alcohol from drunks and require them to move on.

But the newspaper said a police report to be presented before the local authority’s licensing board this week says the DPPO simply moved street drinkers to a different location five minutes away.

The report said: "The order has indeed cleared the town's drunks from the centre of Barnsley. However, it has displaced the problem onto the Town End area and indeed magnified it.

"Whilst members of the public will tolerate drunks in the shopping areas or whilst walking into the town centre, they are not so tolerant of gatherings at the end of the street where they live, if this is persistent."

Police from the town’s safer neighbourhood team have called on the council to introduce a new DPPO covering the affected streets. This will be discussed by Barnsley’s licensing board tomorrow (27 October).

According to the Yorkshire Post, the report also said the DPPO was a “very useful tool” in that it allowed police to oversee their patch with “renewed vigour”.

But the group of drinkers “quickly established where the parameters of the order area were and promptly started to gather just outside it.”

Individuals caught drinking in an area covered by a DPPO and who refuse to comply with police officers, face a maximum fine of £500, the newspaper added.