Day of action coming to Colchester town centre (From Essex County Standard)

Ban the sale of chewing gum in like they've done in Singapore.

Colchester's footpaths are covered in the horrible stuff and it costs a fortune to remove it.

Zero tolerance in litter dropping, begging, drunkenness and other anti social behaviour would be nice.

Colonel Kurtz wrote:
Zero tolerance in litter dropping, begging, drunkenness and other anti social behaviour would be nice.

That just about sums it up ,absolutely spot on.
The place is a dump.

Taj wrote:

Colonel Kurtz wrote:
Zero tolerance in litter dropping, begging, drunkenness and other anti social behaviour would be nice.

That just about sums it up ,absolutely spot on.
The place is a dump.

I also agree

Well done Colonel. That is exactly what is needed and that is exactly what will not happen. So what's the point?

Zero tolerance on begging, so you'd prefer a homeless person to steal or die then? By zero tolerance on drunkeness what do you mean? The town relies heavily on the night time economy, wrecking it would destroy jobs for a great many people and further depress the area. There is already zero tolerance on dropping litter, if your caught your fined by Police, there is nothing more they can do aside from pay millions for litter monitors to prowl the streets looking for offenders, that would however be a monumental waste of money.

Colchester doesn't really have a huge problem with litter and begging compared to many other English towns and cities, this however is not cause for complacency and a lot more can be done. In what way are you harmed by begging anyway? It is a terrible situation for someone to be in and requires sustained help from various intstitutions to eradicate. Anti-social behaviour when drunk is a problem but there are already many Police on the streets to tackle the issue, what is needed is a cultural shift away from binge drinking, though this is a nation-wide problem that will take many years to cure, draconian Police policies will acheive nothing, either than people will get drunk somewhere else, probably where Police can't control it and it affects local communities harder.

Zero tolerance is a stupid buzz word that means nothing and does not help create a helpful narrative or provide any solutions.

I'd like to see the whole of St Botolph's Street whitewashed- just to give a blank canvas and show how it could look.
Chewing gum- this idea works in Huntingdon http://www.gumtarget
.co.uk/ and could so easily and cheaply work here if we're realistic and accept that people will not stop cheing gum or spitting it out.