Through a new Police and Public Health backed scheme, operators in the Leeds City Council designated ‘Red’ Cumulative Impact Zone, may see that their premises are taken out of the Red status.
The Red Cumulative Impact Zones within the City Centre are based on the amount of crime and disorder, anti-social behaviour, public disorder instances and general drunkenness in that area. It is not connected to individual premises, but the area itself.
The Police and operators have been trying to work out ways of reducing the associated issues in the Red areas for many years. Should this be achieved then it would allow them to be taken out of the Red areas. This would ‘pave the way’ for new applications, applications for extra hours, extra floor space with additional capacity, etc, without automatic objections from West Yorkshire Police and Leeds City Council.
The West Yorkshire Violent Crime Reduction Unit and West Yorkshire Public Health Reducing Violent Crime Network are offering to fund places on a new scheme called ‘Licensing SAVI’ (Licensing Security And Vulnerability Initiative) which is to be offered out free of charge to alcohol led premises in the Red zone of the City Centre. The Licensing SAVI scheme encourages venues to improve their operational security and management practices year on year using an online self-assessment. This includes all the Police and Council licensing information that venues need to meet statutory licensing requirement for safety and security. Venues can be awarded a star rating, and apply for Licensing SAVI accreditation.
The Police are hopeful that if all alcohol led venues sign up to do these online self-assessments and achieve accreditation, that crime will reduce in the Red areas and ultimately Leeds City Council should be able to do away with the Red areas in the city.
The Police are urging ‘buy-in’ from everyone in the Red areas. It will see a structured way of all operators working together to achieve a common goal that will benefit all.
Those premises that sign up will receive 4 points off their licensing matrix score, plus a further 4 points off should they receive accreditation. All operators who wish to benefit from the scheme should let the West Yorkshire Police Licensing Team have an expression of interest as soon as possible.
If this is introduced and it does, as hoped, lead to a reduction in crime this will be of a real benefit to all, not just the operators of Leeds but also those that frequent the great city.
Further free places will be offered to the rest of the city once the results of the Red Zone pilot scheme have been assessed