D-day on booze ban

A Sedgley booze ban will go before officals for a final decision at a meeting next week. If passed on Tuesday, March 18 the ban will make alcohol illegal on the streets of Sedgley. Police hope it will drive down anti-social-behaviour.

The area which is proposed to be included in the booze-ban order would include the town centre itself, Dormston, Alder Coppice and Queen Victoria schools and also stretch to Cotwall End Nature Reserve at the south of Sedgley and Beacon Centre for the Blind at the north.

The police will produce evidence at the licensing meeting to explain the reason for the specific areas being considered for the order.

Although police already have powers to confiscate alcohol from people who are or appear to be under the age of 18, the order will give them the power of arrest.

Around 300 households in the immediate area of the proposed ban have been informed about the plans, which have also been discussed at area committee meetings.

There have been 39 representations made, all in support of the proposals.

If the committee support the order, it will be made by the council’s director of law and property and reviewed after 12 months by the police.

Signs have been put up at Mary Stevens Park in Stourbridge which has already launched a booze ban.

People are no longer permitted to drink alcohol in the Park or neighbouring Swinford Common.

Licensing bosses approved the scheme last December after it won the backing of many residents and police.

If approved Sedgley will be the latest in the Dudley borough to have a ban on booze.

Stourbridge, Halesowen and Lye already have one.

The proposal has already won the backing of councillors and resident at an area committee in North Dudley.

Councillor Michael Evans said: “A lot of residents are too frightened to walk the streets of Sedgley at night.”