For the past several months I’ve noticed that the population of "street drinkers" who hang out outside our local Tesco’s has been increasing. I circtulated a note about this and received a number of emails from folks who agreed that this was becoming a problem. At the same time I wrote to Sgt David Wiggins of our local Community Support Team and received the following update that I felt folks would want to know about.The problem of street drinkers, beggars and prostitute advertising carders has already been highlighted to me by Sean Murray a couple of weeks ago. In response to that I have already put a request for resources to be made available to me from our MAGPI ( multi agency geographical panel in Islington) commitee. It has already been agreed that the New Horizons and Islington Council Drug and Alcohol teams will deploy their out reach teams to the area, supported by Islington council’s CCTV system. They will be working in the area for the next couple of weeks trying to obtain a medium to long term solution to the problem. I have also secured some funding from the Met Police to work further hours. Once the out reach team has worked the area for the next two weeks I will have a week of action against the street population using the Caledonian ward Safer Neighbourhood team.The reasons for an increase in the street population using the Kings Cross end of the Caledonian Rd is that Camden Police’s Kings Cross SNT have been working intensively on their side of Kings Cross, pushing the beggars, street drinkers etc into our part of Kings Cross.Just to reassure you we do take your concerns seriously and have already put in action a plan to deal with the issues.RegardsSergeant Dave Wiggins PS83NICaledonian Safer Neighbourhood TeamIslington Police Station0207 421 0271
I’m pleased to see that the SN Team is taking some action, but being an impatient New Yorker, I decided to take some of my own action. I popped in to see the Manager, and Duty Manager of Tesco myself. I explained that many folks were really bothered by being hassled by some of these folks ("Have any spare change?") and that we hope Tesco’s would do something about it. He idicated that he was sorry but there was little he could do except call the police. Unfortunately he was calling the Met Police and rarely got any response. As I had myself come armed (with two of our SNTeam members), they exchanged numbers and now Tesco’s will contact the SNT rather then the Met. We hope this will make a difference. I would point out that as we first approached Tesco’s from the other side of the street, the entire group of 5 drinkers, quickly got up and took off.
Kings Cross Environment 