Issue - meetings

The Community Protection Manager introduced the report and reminded the Committee that the Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) in force had been introduced in 2017. Since then, the PSPO had operated successfully to discourage unwanted behaviour within its boundaries, which was in part due to the presence of enforcement officers. The Committee was reminded that Kent Police use the PSPO to encourage appropriate behaviour prior to the use of enforcement through fixed penalties and that the leverage that the PSPO provides should be noted.

The Community Protection Manager highlighted that a desk-top review of the PSPO had taken place alongside an ongoing public consultation process, of which most of the feedback received had been positive.

Several Members expressed unease with the review that had taken place and felt that as public representatives the Committee should be involved and consulted to a greater degree when any renewal and/or changes to the PSPO were considered.

RESOLVED: That

1.  The authority to make, extend, vary or discharge any public spaces protection order (PSPO) should remain with this Committee;

2.  The Proper Officer be requested to move the meeting of this Committee due to be held on 1 September 2020 forward, e.g. by a week, to allow sufficient time for a report to be provided at that meeting summarising and evaluating the consultation responses and allowing this committee to make any decision required before the PSPO expires;

3.  Any proposed text to be brought back to the committee should rectify the technical errors in the existing draft; and

4.  In the report provided, consideration should be given in light of the consultation responses to the statutory recommendations of this Council’s Crime and Disorder Committee meeting held on 24 September 2019.