Sunday 15 January 2012 10.57pm
it's possible that not everyone picked up on this - just before christmas, the council announced community wardens were to be given new powers (effective from jan 2012) which will allow them to stop people cycling on 'footpaths' and 'pedestrian areas'; request name and address of people carrying out certain forms of anti-social behaviour; selling alcohol to someone who is drunk; grafitti etc.
these new powers were simply 'announced', not even remotely explained, which never helps.
there's no publicly available information about the nature of the 'training' the community wardens received - when it comes to grafitti, for example, would have they had art, art history, sociology & psychology training? why stop at 'visual' forms of expression and not target poetry or public speaking too?
how can 'cycling on pedestrian areas' be identified as top 'danger' when some car drivers and their cars are killing people on our roads? etc
i've only had a limited experience of community wardens in action, on one occasion, the trained cws quoted 'trespassing' as the reason local residents protesting against the tree felling should not be in burgess park...
would be great to hear what others think about this? the council's statement is here:
http://www.southwark.gov.uk/news/article/578/community_wardens_in_southwark_first_in_london_to_get_new_powers