Ban area starts on Monday

CAMDEN’S crime czar is banking on a new ban zone for drug addicts, street drinkers and teenage troublemakers to clear up trouble in Camden Town this summer.
Tony Brooks, the former police chief now heading the Town Hall’s community safety unit, confirmed on Tuesday that a so-called dispersal zone has been mapped out for large swathes of Camden Town and Primrose Hill.
Inside the zone, addicts and drinkers can be hit with on-the-spot orders that ban them from the area for 24 hours.
Teenage mobs can be split up, with under-16s facing the prospect of being escorted home to their parents.
The measures – to be introduced on Monday and run until October – match tough tactics used last summer which both the council and police heralded as a success.
Mr Brooks said: “Last summer the dispersal notice helped to keep control of the problems of drug use and dealing Camden Town had experienced in the past. Residents, commuters and businesses are rightly concerned that the police have the power to address unacceptable behaviour to protect the public. We hope the dispersal notice will provide a short-term measure to address drugs, alcohol-related violence and disorderly behaviour.
“It will work alongside more long-term solutions that do not always yield immediate results. ”
The new zone is wider than last year’s dispersal area with Rochester Road and Rochester Square – home to health secretary Patricia Hewitt – now included following concerns that addicts have been moved into residential streets close to Camden Town’s notorious drug markets.
But Somers Town has not been included and community safety chief Councillor Anna Stewart has already had to bat away concern from residents and colleagues including ward Councillor Roger Robinson that the area has been missed out.
She told objectors: “There are undoubtedly problems in Somers Town but these have not yet been raised to the point that either police or other agencies are calling for a dispersal zone, a move which is obviously a last resort.”
Superintendent Martin Richards said: “The feedback we have had from the community has been very positive in terms of increasing public confidence and reducing crime and anti-social behaviour.
“We are successful in reducing crime and I see this as a way of supporting other police initiatives and building on our successes. We want people to come to Camden and feel safe, the dispersal notice will go some way in achieving this by allowing us to remove those that cause anti-social behaviour and affect the quality of life of the peaceful majority.”