Yesterday evening the three ward councillors had a meeting with a few members of the Blackheath Residents Association, the local police sergeant, the head of the Council’s licensing team, and an officer from the Council’s Crime Reduction Service.

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We’d called the meeting so that residents could explain the issues that they wanted help in dealing with and so that they could explore their concerns over the new licensing powers that the Council will be exercising quite shortly.

I was quite shocked by the descriptions of the way people behave in the village late at night.  It seems that the streets of the village have become a public toilet, a place to take class A drugs and to vomit in.

I felt that the meeting went very well, with lots of productive and constructive things we can do together to improve the atmosphere in the village on those evenings when it is heavily used.

We’ve agreed to meet again in the new year to see what progress has been made and whether there are other things we might need to consider at that point.