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Police tackling a late-night disturbance in Soho |
Things are getting better? Try getting a night’s sleep in Soho
Changes in the licensing system have increased the nightly trials of residents in the West End. Ron Whelan, chairman of the Mayfair Action Group says it’s time for things to change.
LIVING in central London has been getting more and more difficult in recent years for the vast majority of residents in Mayfair, Bloomsbury, Soho, Covent Garden and Marylebone. To make matters worse, one has the persistent feeling that local councils (Camden and Westminster) simply don’t care.
This ignorance and indifference to the plight of West End residents is exemplified in the recent stance taken by Westminster Council towards the effects of its licensing policy upon the social environment.
In Soho and Mayfair there have been substantial representations to the council about the detrimental effects which have resulted. The council’s response? In the words of Councillor Audrey Lewis, who is apparently in charge of this policy: “We have absolutely no evidence of things getting worse. Indeed, I think things are getting better.”
Such a statement flies in the face of the nightly reality for residents. But how, one might ask, can such a senior councillor produce such a manifestly untrue statement? The answer to this question is two-fold.
In the first place, the council’s statistics, upon which this statement was based, only include recorded crime. They do not include noise and other forms of anti-social behaviour, which of course are the main afflictions that residents have to suffer.
The second reason is that the council’s Environmental Health Unit, which is supposed to monitor noise complaints, simply doesn’t work. It used to, some years ago, but it certainly doesn’t now. I tried it recently, and after four hours and several phone calls, no one showed up.
Even worse, the councillor apparently responsible for it is none other than Audrey Lewis. So we have a situation where not only is she in charge of issuing licences, she is also in charge of appeals and complaints against those very same licences.
The reality is that, as a result of this recent change in the licensing administrative structure, there is simply no point in anyone phoning the Environmental Health Unit with a noise complaint. As regards appeals against a licence being issued, they all too often disappear amidst a mind-blurring mass of bureaucratic red tape.
I believe that what one can reasonably ask Westminster to do is to separate the issuing of licences from the appeals process and the monitoring of the subsequent performance of those licence holders. What is required is a separate department, completely independent from Audrey Lewis and her sub-committee.
Such a department should have, as part of its remit, a real capability of both transparently processing licensing appeals, and a rapid response to residential complaints about anti-social noise.
I am grateful and proud to live where I live. But I do object to the increasing difficulty in being able to enjoy some basic human amenities – clean streets, car parking, a satisfactory choice of education for one’s children or grandchildren, parks and gardens which are regularly open to the public and where those children can play in safely – and, of course, the chance of an undisturbed night’s sleep.
I can’t think of any council policy in recent times that has directly attempted to lessen these difficulties for residents. Indeed, some – such as the licensing policies and the leasing out of public gardens to private companies – have actually made them worse.
I don’t think that I am alone in deeply resenting both Camden and Westminster viewing the West End purely as an area which generates cash, and that’s it. If you happen to live there, and your quality of life has been adversely affected by council policies, well tough!
Very few councillors actually live in the West End, and I only know of three (those who represent Mayfair) who have any idea as to what has been happening in recent times as far as residents are concerned.
Asking for a change in the collective mindset of Westminster Council may be asking too much.
But, as a start, if an independent, and transparent, licensing appeals and monitoring unit were to be set up, maybe, just maybe, the residential population might begin to believe that the council is prepared to listen to them, and that it does care.
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