Working hard to keep you safer
Welcome to the second of three newsletters highlighting the work Torbay Council and partners are doing to deliver a quality, welcoming, and safe town centre and harbourside in Torquay.
In this edition, we update you on new projects to make the night-time economy safer for women and girls. Not just the SWaN charter featured on this page, but also a brilliant training scheme that gives staff working in pubs and clubs the skills to spot signs of harassment.
We also give signposts to some of the resources available to help ensure everyone can enjoy a safe evening out. And we keep you up to date about our efforts to reduce street homelessness and to keep our streets clean and tidy.
Women’s safety gets new focus
Businesses in Torquay are being asked to sign up to a new charter which commits them to keeping women and girls safer when they spend time in the town’s vibrant night-time economy.
The Safety of Women at Night Charter has been developed as part of the focus on making Torquay a place where women feel confident and safe in the evening.
Pubs, restaurants, bars, night clubs, hotels, taxi firms, cinemas, gyms, supermarkets, and shops will be asked to commit their names to paper in the pursuit of safety.
The charter is a voluntary pledge to prioritise the safety of women and girls and to acknowledge it is all our responsibility to take practical steps together to keep the Bay safe for everyone.
It unites organisations in developing a whole-town approach to reducing violence against women and girls and keeping them safe at night in Torquay.
Jason Preece, Torbay Council’s Sexual Violence and Domestic Abuse Project Manager, said the Charter helps address the causes and effects of violence against women and girls in the town.
“The Charter and associated toolkit give businesses a framework in which to show their commitment to keeping all women and girls safe,” he said. “In signing the charter, they make a voluntary commitment on behalf of their organisation to deliver its pledges and commitments.
“We will ask businesses to recommit to the charter annually, but we will help them to deliver by providing regular training updates, signposting to specialist providers and guidance, and sharing national best practice.
“We would encourage anyone planning to go out in the town to look out for the stickers which are displayed by venues to show they have signed the charter - this shows they have committed to keeping you safe. “If your local pub or places you visit regularly aren’t showing a sticker ask them if they have signed the charter and if not, why not?”
Shout Up to stop harassment
Staff in pubs, clubs, bars, restaurants, and others working in Torquay’s night-time economy are being offered training so they understand how sexual harassment can show up in their workplace.
Shout-Up! gives training to staff who learn how harassment impacts people, the reputation of the business and staff motivation, and gives them the confidence and skills they need to see it and stop it.
Shout-Up! is already being delivered in towns across the UK in partnership with rape crisis centres and funders, such as the local council and police and crime commissioners. In Torquay, Devon Rape Crisis will deliver the training as part of the Council’s Safer Streets Project.
The training is delivered free of charge and hopes to shift attitudes about sexual harassment and to equip staff working in those organisations with the skills to create safer working and leisure environments.
Shout-Up! offers training for all members of staff, working at every level in licensed venues to give them the knowledge and confidence to:
- understand the impact of sexual harassment
- identify acts of sexual harassment or behaviours that may lead to it
- intervene safely when needed and,
- what to do when it happens or a complaint is made.
11 venues have signed up so far and there are some spaces available. You can sign up to Torbay Shout Up!
Harbour of safety at night
Have you ever been on a night out in Torquay and got separated from your friends, felt unwell or were being harassed or worried that someone was following you?
Did you know that on busy nights there is a place in the town you can go to get support with any of these issues?
Torquay’s Safe Space is situated in a mobile unit which is parked on the Harbourside. It opened for business in mid-July and will be open from 10pm to 4am every Friday and Saturday throughout the summer and on key dates around Christmas and New Year.
The aim of Safe Space is to provide medical treatment and support on the harbourside to keep more people safe and reduce the need for ambulance call outs and emergency department attendances.
The unit is manned by medical professionals including paramedics and security will also be there as additional support. The service is provided by Event Paramedics. More information about contacting the police or support services where it’s not safe to do so from home can be found on the Are You OK? website.
There’s a new marshal in town
One of the many benefits of the Safer Streets project is that it allows towns like Torquay to focus vital funding on the busiest periods and use it to do even more to help keep people safe.
In Torquay it is no surprise that the six weeks of the school summer holidays are the busiest time of year - a time when visitors join locals to fill our streets, our shops, our attractions, our pubs, clubs and restaurants.
It’s a time when people need support to stay safe and that is particularly true at night. Safer Streets funding allowed the council to employ two teams of street marshals who worked from 10pm-4am from the middle of July until the end of August.
One of the teams was on patrol on foot between Castle Circus and the sea front, the other based at Safe Space. All were Security Industry Authority qualified civil marshals.
Vikki McGeough, the council’s Safer Torbay Partnership Lead Manager, said: “The marshals were key to supporting communities and businesses during the summer.
“Their role was much more than preventing antisocial behaviour and reducing the fear of crime, it was also to engage with and support vulnerable groups in the Town Centre, to offer a response to their needs and signpost appropriately to keep them safe.
“This helped to ensure people had the right support at the right time and supported a reduction in demand on the police by providing an appropriate response to incidents that don’t really require the presence of officers.”
Projects bid for grant funding
Torbay Communities on behalf of Safer Torbay has launched the Safer Streets Community Innovation Fund.
The fund provides grants of between £500 and £6,000 for projects that will have a positive impact in and around Torquay town centre which will help people feel safe, with a greater sense of belonging and involvement in their neighbourhood.
There were some amazing applications from the community and an update on projects will be provided in the next newsletter.
Council aims to end street homelessness
Torbay Council has taken over management of Torquay’s purpose-built homeless hostel to assist in its goal to end street homelessness.
They have brought together a wider network of partners to help people recover from homelessness. The number one goal is to give residents a way from the streets to their own homes.
Hostel Manager, Katy Fisher, says her job is about changing people’s lives and improving things for them.
Supported accommodation
“We offer safe, supported accommodation for them in order to let them get back on their feet,” she said. “The public sees people living on the streets and may not understand what they have experienced in order to end up in that position.
“We want people to be in the hostel and getting the level of support that they need to enable them to move into their own home as quickly as we can. This enables us to have more beds and places available to help reduce rough sleeping and homelessness.
Councillor Hayley Trantor, Cabinet Member for Adult and Community Services, Public Health and Inequalities said: “All of this has to be part of a wider system, so we can put together all of those pieces of the jigsaw to be able to help people.”
“People think that homelessness is what they see outside the hostel and around Castle Circus but it’s much deeper than that, as people in the vicinity are often not residents of the hostel. “Those people have their own needs, and we want to do all we can to help them recover.”
Hungry Glutton makes short work of rubbish
If you are out and about in Torquay town centre and along the harbour you may well see an unusual looking machine which is being used to help keep the streets clean.
The ‘Glutton’ is an appropriately named electric industrial vacuum which quite literally uses its power to suck up everything that ends up on the streets.
Operated by SWISCo the Glutton offers many benefits in comparison to the traditional method of litter picking and sweeping. It’s power-assisted so pulling and pushing is easier, the operator doesn’t need a brush and the collected waste requires no manual handling.
It is also efficient when cleaning difficult to reach areas like under benches and overall gives a better, more efficient clean, especially where there is a lot of small litter like cigarette ends. It even has a reservoir of water which allows the operator to clean up some of the less ‘fragrant’ deposits found on the street.