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Youth dispersal zone close to school is removed by police
POLICE have relinquished extra powers to tackle gangs they had claimed were plaguing an area around a Kentish Town school and Tube station after just three months.
As of Monday night, a dispersal order that had covered Tufnell Park underground since February was cut short following talks between police, Camden Council and Acland Burghley School headteacher Michael Shew.
Although no officers were available to discuss why the decision to cut the order short had been taken, the borough’s anti-social behaviour co-ordinator, PC Dylan Belt, said in a statement: “Police have been reviewing all dispersal notices and the Tufnell Park dispersal zone appears to have met its objectives. The area will cease to be a dispersal zone as of 23.59 hours on Monday, 25th May 2009. We will continue to monitor the area in partnership with Islington.” The Tufnell Park zone, which also covered parts of Islington, allowed police to ban under-16s from the area after 9pm and break up any groups of two or more people.
It was approved after police catalogued gang activity, drug dealing, prostitution, and robbery.
Dispersal zones, which are authorised by the Town Hall under the Anti-Social Behaviour Act, are designed to last six months and in Camden have frequently been extended almost indefinitely, with some now entering their fifth year.
Mr Shew, who called for guarantees that his students would be allowed to move freely in the zone when it was introduced in February, welcomed the early removal of the powers.
“We were all agreed that given there had been an improvement, there was no longer a justification for the dispersal zone,” he said. |
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