Just recently, and not for the first time, I noticed comments on one of the Weston-super-Mare community Facebook groups implying the town’s street wardens simply hang around the town centre doing nothing. In response, one of the street wardens, James Clayton, also a Labour councillor, invited the authors of the comments to come out with the wardens to see what they do.
The offer wasn’t accepted. Except by me, that is.
Somewhat annoyed at the misinformed moaning that goes on in such Facebook groups, I saw this as a chance to investigate and put the record straight regarding what these wardens can and cannot do. And so, early one Wednesday morning, I found myself with James in the Weston town council offices before going out with him onto the streets.
BID: Business Improvement District
The street wardens in Weston are employed by Weston Business Improvement District (BID). Although BID doesn’t solely concern itself with the wardens, they do account for most of BID’s expenditure. Their primary function is to protect the town centre businesses against shoplifting. The wardens are supported in this by a Crime Reduction Manager, a CCTV team, and a Town Centre Manager. The Crime Reduction Manager also runs the Radiolink scheme, which enables businesses to communicate with each other and the wardens. Radiolink is also connected to a national system called DISC, where acts of anti-social behaviour (ASB), particularly shop theft, are recorded.
Three wardens operate seven days a week. They are all Security Industry Authority trained and are usually experienced in similar roles. It is by no means an easy job, and there is a widespread misconception in the town about what they do and what powers they have.
Exclusion notices
Serial ASB offenders can be handed documents called ‘exclusion notices’ by the wardens. There are categories 1 to 3, with Category 3 being permanent exclusion from a premises. The businesses who use the Radiolink scheme vote on whether to exclude someone, and if the vote passes, all the businesses in the scheme must abide by the exclusion notice and exclude the named offender.
At the time of my day out with James, he and his colleagues still have a few to hand out to certain offenders, if they see them around. If the offender refuses to accept the exclusion notice, the exclusion is still valid. It is just documented and logged.
Misconceptions
James tells me a lot of the public’s confusion comes from the wardens’ jurisdiction overlapping with other teams:
“There is a Community Response Team (CRT) run by North Somerset Council, and their role is solely around anti-social behaviour. They have powers that are delegated from the police, such as requiring names, being able to issue fixed penalty notices… and this is the real bugbear because this is what people mistake us for. [The CRT] go round and fine people for dropping litter, etc., and they operate around the town as well.”
The wardens do not have arrest powers like the police, nor do they have any powers to request names or fine people. And yet, because they wear a uniform, people confuse them with other teams, such as the CRT. This can be very frustrating when homeless people (whom the wardens and the CRT respectfully call ‘the street community’) are engaged in ASB and the public are watching, expecting the wardens to do something. But there’s very little they can actually do.
The street community
“We will get involved with ASB,” says James.
“But if it is not directly affecting a business, it is more of a police issue. What people don’t understand is that we don’t have any enforcement powers. Recently on social media we’ve seen people saying things like, ‘We’ve seen street wardens laughing and joking with them,’ but what they don’t realise is that we have to build a rapport with them if we do want to move them on. If we go over there with a hard hand, they are just going to tell us to **** off.”
James says of the wardens’ strategy for tackling shoplifting:
“A lot of the time, what we will do is try and retrieve the goods. We’ve got no powers to detain them. The big thing with us, especially with independent stores is to go out, retrieve the goods, go back and get the shop to report it to the police. It’s all about tactics.”
I ask James what powers the wardens actually have. He tells me they have “The power of persuasion. That’s it. We’re pretty much a deterrent. But it works.” He goes on to say that stock recovery so far this year has been around £2,000. The Crime Reduction Manager, Jeanie Thompson, confirms that the annual stock recovery is usually between £6,000 and £8,000.
Social deprivation
It soon becomes apparent to me that social deprivation, which is increasing in the town, is a big factor in why people offend. Jeanie says the wardens “aren’t about criminalising people, they are about helping. Unfortunately, with the uniform, people see that as a bad side, but it is there as a deterrent for the shoplifting side.”
James tells me that the wardens liaise with other teams and organisations in the town: “There is this scheme called Housing First for the most problematic individuals… With Housing First, you can’t get a more intense scheme for individuals. It’s designed to be almost impossible to be evicted from it, and yet what we’re finding is that individuals are even getting evicted from that and then they are back out on the street. It’s very much a very vicious circle that we find a lot of them in.”
Social media
Unfortunately, although James believes most people are aware of these problems, it sometimes doesn’t feel like it when people discuss the wardens on social media, often unfairly.
“There are a lot of social media groups where people go on there and say things like, ‘There’s always smackheads in town’ and ‘It’s wrong and nothing’s being done’ and all that,” James says. “Actually, a lot is being done, but we’re kind of firefighting a lot of it, but then you’ll get the people… [who] do understand, but they just won’t speak up on a social media platform so that most of what you see is just the negative.”
To the street
After our discussion in the town council offices, we move out on to the street and start patrolling. We wander over to the seats alongside the grassy area near the Italian Gardens where James starts talking to some people, checking in with them. One of them implies that he will be offending soon. Sure enough, after wandering up the High Street, James receives a radio call from one of the shops. We turn around, and I see the same man we’ve just been talking to running away from B&M Bargains at high speed. We run after him, but he disappears into the nearby market, heading for the seafront, despite James calling after him.
Instead of continuing the chase, we return to B&M and talk to the staff there. James asks them to log the incident so they can build a log on the offender which they will then hand over to the police.
When I ask a staff member what they think of the wardens, they respond: “They’re always here. We’ve got the radio and when we call them, they respond very quickly, and either talk back to us on the radio or they’re here. They’re a lifeline to us because we have every day, all day, thieves in and out, and some of them are quite abusive. We rely on these guys, and they’re a credit to the community, to be honest.”
Walker & Ling and the daily routine of shop doorway sleeping
I hear a similar story from the staff in Walker & Ling. Unlike national chain B&M, it is an independent – the town’s largest. It sells fairly expensive high-end goods and has impressive security. Its problem is not so much shoplifting, but people leaving a mess in the morning after they’ve slept in the shop doorway overnight. This happens daily and can be really intimidating. “Someone spat in my face last year and threw a cup at me,” a woman at the counter tells me. “I get called names all the time. They’re there, sitting outside the shop at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, ready to get their bed ready, and every single morning we have to go and clean up after them. That’s not nice.”
Unsurprisingly, the staff are full of praise for the wardens, who are quite clearly doing as much as they can to help the businesses against a steadily increasing problem. And yet, some of the criticism they still get on social media is quite shocking. Having spent the day discovering a side to our society that the wardens’ most vocal critics have declined to see for themselves, I can’t help but think to myself, “If only those people knew what really goes on.”
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