Volunteers, staff, police officers and nearby Tesco workers turned out to helped clear the alley leading to St Augustine’s CE (VA) Junior School in Woodston, Peterborough after ongoing reports of drug dealing and users disturbing the school.
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00:00 [Music]
00:14 So I wonder if you could tell us about what we're doing here today Dan?
00:18 Well we're trying to clear up our alley so that it's a bit of a nicer space for our children coming to and from school
00:25 so that it makes it as difficult as possible for the crimes that have been taking place to take place in future.
00:30 Yes, it's been a real problem area for the school in the last couple of years or so.
00:34 Yeah definitely, yeah. I mean we've had historic issues with drug use including heroin injection just down this alley
00:42 and deals taking place and I think it's fair to say that some arrests were made in autumn,
00:47 the problem went away for a while but it's definitely come back with a vengeance.
00:50 So we want to try and really get that community buy-in so that we make a real difference going forwards
00:56 because no child should ever have to put up with that on their school doorstep.
01:01 Yeah, is this something you've spoken to with police?
01:04 Yeah, so as we speak we've got the police, we've got our neighbourhood policing team that have actually come along to help out this afternoon.
01:10 We have Touchwood, we have got that real community buy-in, we've got the police on board, we've got Tesco who are next door,
01:17 they've come along and we've just had the Tesco security team that have come along and yeah, Touchwood we've got lots of people involved.
01:23 As you say it's great to see so many people, so many kind of parents, people involved in the school,
01:26 what age are you turning out in school, what do you hope to do with that?
01:28 That's been the real heartening thing is that people do care, you know, people want to make a difference.
01:32 This isn't about me, this isn't about our school, this is about our children, this is about their futures
01:37 and what we want to absolutely avoid is this sort of anti-social behaviour and this crime becoming normalised
01:43 because it should never be normal, it should never be accepted as 'well that's the way things are around here', we want to raise those aspirations.
01:49 So what do you guys think about all the work that's going on here today and how you're helping with that?
02:07 Yeah, so it's a community event here today, it's Monday at 2 o'clock and we're at St Edmunds School
02:13 and we're doing a litter pick and just clearing up the area, we've had a lot of reports of drug dealing, drug activity,
02:19 so just trying to make it a bit more pleasant space for the children because there's basically drug users using this area during school times which is obviously a concern for us.
02:30 So there are other people working closely with the school about the issues in this area?
02:34 Yeah, we've been engaging with them, unfortunately we've discovered that drug users are coming here at gap times
02:40 so we're going to increase some patrols, see if we can ID anybody through CCTV, build some intelligence, work with the school and the council to clear up the area and make it a more pleasant place.
02:50 Yeah, and it's great to see that so many people from the local community, people from the school, parents, police like yourself here coming today to really help out.
02:57 Yeah, we're really looking forward to community events like this and hopefully get involved in more, obviously it raises awareness as well so people can keep a lookout
03:05 and hopefully we get a few more reports and discourage people from using the area for drug activity.
03:11 So why don't you tell us a bit about the community action project that's taking place here today?
03:20 Yeah, this is organised by St Augustine's and it's an event called 'Clear the Alley' where we're joined by the community, local neighbourhood police officers, teachers and young children to help prevent crime and antisocial behaviour in the alleyway.
03:40 Yeah, what have been some of the problems reported to you as a local councillor about this area, this alley in particular?
03:45 Just lots of drug misuse in the alleyway.
03:49 It's great to see that so many people turned up to help with this.
03:52 Yeah, it's been fantastic and we're so grateful to have such a good community in the ward.
03:56 [Music]