BROADLY SPEAKING AUGUST 2008

In our endeavour to highlight the major problem of prostitution that blights a number of roads in our area, we arranged a meeting between residents that are particularly affected by this and Chief Superintendent Paul Howlett, Broadgreen NPT beat manager PC Paul Crouch and Richard Palusinski of the Crime and Disorder Team, to see if the problem could be eradicated once and for all. The outcome of the meeting was not exactly what the residents wanted to hear because a quick fix through the judicial system, CS Paul Howlett insisted, would not give us a long-term solution to street prostitution, but by tackling the underlying problem of drug dependency that most of the prostitutes have, along with targeting kerb crawlers and other associated crimes, he was confident that it could be successfully stopped. The Broadgreen Neighbourhood Police Team has already worked extremely hard to substantially reduce the number of ‘girls’ working on the streets.

Three SBC Cabinet Members also spent time in the Broadgreen Area recently. Deputy Leader of the Council Fionuala Foley, Cllr. Brian Mattock and Cllr. Colin Lovell met with a group of residents, walked the area and had a discussion about some of the problems here. We very much appreciate their visit and enjoyed a positive and friendly meeting. All three cabinet members have offered to come back and re-visit us in the near future.

The Community Council has organised a clean up day for the area on Saturday 2nd of August, this is in association with Swindon Council and the Broadgreen Police Team, as this column will probably not be published until after the event, a full report will follow in the September edition.

A couple of weeks ago the Goan Association put on a festival at the County Ground to celebrate their culture. A number of members of the Community Council were invited and had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. So congratulations to all concerned in organising this, their first festival in Swindon, and we look forward to many more.

The next monthly residents meetings are on the 6th August when the Parking Department will be guest speakers and the 3rd September. Meetings start at 7.30 pm at the Broadgreen Centre. There is no charge to attend meetings and all residents in the Broadgreen area are automatically members and are invited to attend.