Safety fear in city centre at night

Since the last quarter of 2007-08, recorded violent crime between 7pm and 4am on Friday and Saturday nights in the city has increased while in Pontefract it has remained fairly static and at Xscape, the leisure complex near Castleford, it has gone down.

The draft report, Westgate Safety, does not quote crime statistics but councillors who visited the city centre in October last year said they noticed a "diminished sense of calm and safety" compared with a visit they made a year earlier.

They were particularly concerned about traffic on Westgate following the ending of a traffic order which restricted access at weekends. A one-way system was introduced, with access restricted to buses, taxis and emergency vehicles.

The temporary order ended in May last year after councillors decided it could not be made permanent as regeneration works would result in changes to the road network.

But the report says the impact of the ending of the traffic order was noticeable. "On the first visit (before the traffic order ended) we felt extremely safe and the area was calm. At the time of the second visit, we were concerned by the diminished sense of calm and safety that we experienced.

"Taxis and hackney carriages were travelling at speed in both directions and doing U-turns on Westgate, while additional taxis were trying to feed into Westgate from side streets.

"At the same time pedestrians were trying to cross the flow of traffic. We felt unsafe both when driving and walking in the area and witnessed pedestrians having difficulty crossing the road."

The lifting of the traffic order had made Westgate harder to police, the report added.

When consulted last year "West Yorkshire Police stated that the lifting of the traffic order was impacting on their ability to police Westgate due to additional resources needed to tackle the traffic issues.

"If the police are to be effective on Westgate there is a danger that other areas will suffer as a result, as officers are brought in from other areas of the city to deal with the problems on Westgate."

A survey found that 91 per cent of local businesses and 87 per cent of the public believed the traffic order had a positive impact on safety.

Although there has been no significant increase in accidents, the perception of a lack of safety could prevent people visiting and damage the economy, the report warns.

Discussions with council highways officials indicate that a decision on a permanent traffic order could be taken following the completion of the Merchant Gate development, once traffic flows have been observed.

The possibility of a one-way system has also been discussed but it is considered to be too early to predict whether that would be appropriate.

"However we have been told that in the long term it could be considered as part of the planned Upper Westgate Scheme identified in the Wakefield city centre highways improvement plan."

Scrutiny committee members were also impressed by the work of the six Night Life marshalls, employed by the police to deal with low-level disorder.

The future funding of the marshalls is uncertain and their loss would be a backwards step, the report says. It makes five recommendations, including securing the long-term future of Night Life marshalls and a review of road safety.