An emergency hub for homeless people, a crackdown on anti social behaviour, litter and alcohol and drug consumption, a review of CCTV cameras and the recruitment of a Manager of City Centre Public Services.
These are amongst the plans to be discussed by the Executive Committee of Manchester Council next week as part of a review intended to create a better understanding of the complexities, demands and pressure points for services delivering in the city centre.
The growth of the city centre has led to increased numbers of visitors, residents, jobs and people working in the city centre over the last few years.
The city now has 2.4million visitors each year. The last 30 years have also seen the growth of the city centre as a popular residential location with about 25,000 residents within the inner core. This is coupled with a 7% increase in employment. Even in a period of global recession, employment numbers have risen from 110,500 to 118,600 employees within the city centre over the past the seven years from 2009 – 2015.
Licensed premises have increased from 604 in 2010 to 758 in 2016, a 26% increase.
In this context, there are high and complex demands on public services in the city centre, alongside significant funding reductions and pressures over the last six years.
The review considered Drug and alcohol consumption, Homelessness, illegal occupancy and rough sleeping, Street begging, Peddling,Anti-social behaviour, Litter and waste management, Specific locations causing concern, Condition, maintenance and renewal of public realm.
Homelessness, rough sleeping and begging were highlighted as the priority issue for the city centre and were the most frequently mentioned areas of concern during the review, although people failed to distinguish between the three.According to the council, the official count has increased from 7 in 2010 to 78 in 2016. The true number is likely to be much higher.
The Councils estimate from staff who work with rough-sleepers is that there will be around 260 people sleeping rough in the city centre at different times over the course of a few weeks.
The review included a count of the number of people begging, however, much less is known about people who beg. The count conducted for the review estimated that there were 140 people begging, 58% of whom were not also rough sleeping.
A bid to the DCLG Homelessness Prevention Programme has been developed with the Homelessness Charter Partnership and submitted to develop one new emergency hub in the city centre of Manchester to support individuals with a range of issues.
Other issues identified include taking stronger action to manage the issuing of permissions for charity collectors, based in the city centre, so they are not perceived to be dominating public space and to take robust action to control pedlars and loud amplified music.
This will all come at a cost, £4.6m to be precise, half a million pounds of that to be spent on establishing the homeless hub, the salary for the new post of City Centre Czar is yet to be determined.
