A safer Otley Run
This famous pub crawl is a long standing tradition that brings joy to lots of people. But since lockdown it has hugely increased in size, becoming a destination across the country. This has brought new anti-social behaviour challenges for local residents and businesses, so we're working with other local councillors, our MP, pubs, and the police to find solutions.
The main problems we experience as local residents and which are reported to us are:
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Public urination
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Large groups blocking the pavement
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Anti-social behaviour and verbal harassment
Our approach is to make sure enforcement officers are able to tackle bad behaviour, and to try and change the bad behaviour at its root. Update (March 2024): we are working on getting more permanent patrols for the Otley Run, sign up for our email newsletter to stay up to date.
Give police and council officers the powers to deal with the problems
By default the police can't tackle the main issues listed above. We've been working to change that and as of 1st July 2023 have successfully changed the local 'Public Space Protection Order' (PSPO) for the Inner North West of Leeds so that it includes the following:
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Fines for public urination and defecation
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Fines and the power to move people on if they're a large group blocking the pavement
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Fines and the power to move people on for anti-social behaviour and verbal abuse, including sexualised insults
In each case, people will be given the chance to stop voluntarily first.
These prohibitions can be enforced both by police and council anti-social behaviour officers. This means, for the first time, we can actually tackle the problem behaviour caused by the Otley Run. This will also create the case for more resources to go into the area, for example through 'anti social behaviour action days' - we are holding two of these in May 2024. The Otley Run is already patrolled by police officers, now they have more power to act.
Change behaviour on the run
We're working with the pubs and bars to find ways to encourage better behaviour on the Otley Run. For example, we're looking to support an advertising campaign both inside and outside of the venues. We want the venues to fund these initiatives. Venues have also agreed to put on more door staff, which has helped.
Read the latest news about how we're improving the Otley Run below:
