The manager of Spalding BID (Business Improvement District) has urged people to report anti-social behaviour after outlining some of the abuse businesses in and around Hall Place have received.
Sarah Fletcher told a meeting of the Spalding Town Forum last week that the businesses in the vicinity had come together to provide an impact statement in a bid to get police to patrol the area more.
“There’s some appalling behaviour that happens to those businesses and their staff,” she said. “They say it’s almost impossible to work down there.
“The impact statements are very powerful and, at times, it was quite distressing for them to share what’s happened to them and their staff.
“One of the businesses said a member of staff opened the door once to find someone urinating.
“We privately shared it with Lincolnshire Police and South Holland District Council and that really started to show the evidence to them.
“Along with the hot spot policing and community safety teams we believe this is a really important piece of work we’ve been able to do.
“Two of the businesses have put themselves forward that should see enough evidence created so that action is taken. They will go along with that and take court
action.
“We were able to show open drug use in Pied Calf Yard which the police weren’t aware of. Not enough is being reported, so there’s a perception of very little anti-social behaviour in the town.
“We’re not the worst town in the world for it, but any behaviour like that is not
acceptable.”
Mrs Fletcher also highlighted one of the gambling businesses had contributed to the victim impact statements because of the racism staff were receiving.
“They had some really quite powerful things to say,” she said. “There’s quite a bit of racism to the staff which is very distressing.”
The town forum was told that fact sheets would go out to businesses.
That’s partly because a staff member at one business had to sit on the phone for an hour to the police.
“They don’t have enough time to do that, so we’re looking at ways they can do this much quicker,” Mrs Fletcher said.
She also said she would like to launch a campaign urging people to report all anti-social behaviour they see.
“It would be along the lines of ‘see it, report it’.
“People shouldn’t have to worry about reporting something without fear of redress.”
