South Petherton Local Action Group

South Petherton is blessed with a very active, successful and inspirational group of young people who over the years have developed the Youth Club and Youth Parish Council into nationally recognised beacons of excellence. Their success continues with Hannah Strugnell being named as Young Volunteer of the Year at the recent ‘Oscars’ in Yeovil and the Youth Parish Council responding to a request from DEFRA to prepare a report……… Despite these really successful efforts, it was probably never going to be possible to involve and engage absolutely every young person all of the time, and the village continues to experience Anti-Social Behaviour and many individual residents suffer from unpleasant and worrying incidents that often they feel the police have not done enough about.

About a year ago I was asked to chair the Local Action Group (LAG) - formed under the auspices of the Area North Community Safety Action Panel. Lots of jargon, but the basic premise is that local issues, particularly with Anti-Social Behaviour, need a mix of very local direct involvement but cannot be totally effective without support from the various experts and agencies such as Police, District Council, County Council and any one else with relevant skills.

We meet on about a monthly cycle in the Blake Hall committee room. I am very grateful to all the many local people and particularly young people who are actively involved and also to the external support we have from the police, Community safety Partnership, District Young People’s Officer, County Youth Service and my fellow Councillors.

Our first meetings were a bit tense – there is a reasonable concern that talking shops can be set up that tick boxes but don’t actually DO anything other than make themselves feel good. Local residents, particularly in St James Street, Prigg Lane and Roundwell Street were looking for action not words. Malcolm Lake has been a strong champion for the local residents and I am delighted that he has shown leadership in meeting with the young people and taking an active part in some of the activities we have been able to develop. Its not easy, but getting to know the young people in the car park, and them you is a big step towards mutual respect.

(I remember Richard Palmer when he was the Parish Council liaison with the Youth Club going to his first meeting and recounting that the next day he walked through the card park and was surprised to hear a number of the previously anonymous and ‘hooded’ group of young people calling out ‘Hi Richard’ – a major improvement!!)

So – what to do?

With the organisational skills of Sharon Blake as our foundation the LAG identified that we needed to do several things, quickly.

- Reduce the level of anti-social behaviour,
- increase the comfort local residents had with the response from police and other agencies,
- develop activities that all young people could engage with,
- and create sustainable solutions to somewhere for all young people to ‘hang out’ while protecting those areas that were not appropriate.

With small amounts of grant funding from the Community Safety Action Panel initially, then from County, District and Police funding augmented by some local parish funds, we have addressed each of the issues to a significant degree and there has been a general improvement in all cases. Not perfect, and not a one off exercise, we will have to persevere but its been a very good start.

What have we done?

The Time Out Together community bus was set up in Yeovil to address similar issues there. Using the old District Council double decker bus (must be 50 years old now) this voluntary group brought the bus to the St James St car park for an evening a number of weeks over Christmas and well in to the New Year. Activities such as computing, coffee shop and general chat were supported by both volunteers from the Time Out Together group but also local residents – Jenny Derbyshire has been magnificent. Time Out Together also won an ‘Oscar’ and Dana and her team have shown us that you can engage all of the young people some of the time – and it was a great ice-breaker. We have booked the bus for later in the year during the cold winter evenings!

The David Hall, often seeming to be the target of some behaviour, have been very supportive and I would like to thank their committee for providing time for a number of taster activities put on by the Yeovil Foyer Outreach group, lead by Lisa Warr. Together with the District Young People’s Officer the Foyer began a series of sessions to identify what activities young people would want to get involved with – a number of things have come out of this – street soccer, DJ skills and others that are being pursued and will (with the support of volunteers) be a continuing part of village life.

The entrance to the Library used to be a haven for young people when it rained – but its not the perfect place, no light, no seats and a not really the right location. The photograph shows the new Youth Shelter, installed a few weeks ago and already being well used. The recreation ground was clearly seen as a better place for young people to congregate in the summer evenings, and the games area is great but without lighting and without a shelter that was lit the dark nights meant young people went back to the village centre after dark…..

Now the shelter with its solar panels providing gentle light until well into the evening and the new lights for the multi use games area (installed with much help from the police, Russell Knight and Keith Vincent – and 15 young people digging trenches on the first night) will offer a safe, accessible place for all young people to congregate.

The Youth Club continues to operate twonighst each week with a further evening session panned tostart in September. The parish Coucnuikl has now arranged for Peter May and his team from Active Learning Skills to arrange additional activities na Friday evening to complement the work of the County Youth Service. SCC have just appointed a new Senior Youth Worker who will be able concentrate much more on South Petherton and we look forward to him arriving next month.

All of this (and there is more) are on the positive side, but we cannot shrink from taking affirmative action when things still don not go right. The level of police intervention and action has increased significantly, the level of incidents has reduced but the severity of penalty has increased.

Neighbourhood Watch Schemes have been established in the central part of the village and along with the existing schemes are well supported by our Police Community Support Officers, Michelle Haimes and Peter Brember and by Jon Watson, Police Community Beat Manager . Jon has run 2 extremely successful exercises since he joined our area. The first was a meeting of all young people in the rec with over 30 attendees where the issues were openly discussed and actions agreed, the second a PACT (Police and Community Together’ session at the annual parish meeting, where the 3 key issues of concern were

1. Anti Social Behaviour
2. Parking
3. Speeding

The balance between plenty to do, an open attitude between young and older residents, and strong action by police in response to recorded incidents is the key to lower levels of concern and even greater comfort in this best of all villages. There has been a higher level of parking enforcement, and with enough volunteers Community Speedwatch could restart and will be supported actively by the police as it is in other parishes.

And that’s the big message from the Local Action Group’s first year. There is a real opportunity to make a difference if everyone gets together with a positive attitude and gets on with doing something. We have made a good start, its not a finished project but so far its making a real improvement that we will strive to continue to deliver.


(submitted for inclusion in the TA13 local magazine)