Enright Welcomes Action In Ardglass On Drugs, Underage Drinking And Anti-social Behavioiur

Green Party Councillor Cadogan Enright has spoken out following the recent Community Safety Partnership meeting in Ardglass during which residents reported being able to buy “whatever you want” in terms of drugs in the village. He said, ‘I believe there are two serious issues concerning residents the  most. The first is the issue of drugs being sold in the town, and at the carpark at the Marina which got a special mention, and secondly, young people being caught up in anti-social drinking. They cause disturbances in the areas where they hang out and this leads to nuisance, vandalism, noise and the debris of bottles and cans. “The point I made was that local elected representitives, with the support of the PSNI, have the capacity to deal with these two issues, and they have been dealt with successfully before. “Local residents showed me where they believed drugs money was being collected in cars down at the Marina last October. In my capactity as a Policing Partnership member I took a PSNI inspector there and described what was happening and where the drugs were being collected at separate locations. I was disappointed that local people feel that the situation has not improved, but the recent cannabis drugs find at Ballyhornan was encouraging. [caption id="attachment_20746" align="alignleft" width="400" caption="Green Party Councillor Cadogan Enright has lobbied to stop stop drug dealing in Ardglass, an issue which underpins anti-social behaviour."][/caption] “Separately, as I pointed out at the Ardglass meeting, I have successfully worked with residents in Killough to counter anti-socal drinking through getting a multi-agency approach to the problem. In particular we organised night-time and week-end joint patrols between Environmental Enforcement officers and the PSNI which had a tremendous effect in reducing the problem on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.” “I said at the Ardglass meeting that the Council has cut the entire £14,000 budget for night-time and weekend joint patrols with the PSNI. This was a terrible mistake. I have had committments from Councillors from other parties to get this cut reviewed, as it could end up costing us in clean-up costs more money than it would save.” “Also, at a recent Down District Policing Partnership meeting, I raised this issue, and recived unanimous support of all DPP members to write to Down Council and ask them to reverse this situation as it was felt that we cannot leave the community with its most effective tool in tackling anti-social drinking – the combined powers of Environmental Enforecment and PSNI officers is sufficient to bring such behaviour to a rapid halt.” Joint patrols are now currently ongoing in Ardglass at key times between PSNI Neighbourhood officers and Down District Council Enforcement Officers targetting these issues under the Down District Community Safety Partnership anti-social behaviour action plan programme.