THE MADNESS CONTINUES!

OLDHAM CHRONICLE online: 11/03/2010 'Violent town-centre crime has plummeted thanks to a crackdown on cheap booze promotions.'

15/3/2010  'Man dies after 3am street fight outside pub.'


It was only a matter of time. Several of us have been warning, for some time,  that the sad events of last night were bound to happen sooner rather than later.  Another young life snuffed out. Nothing changes. The same old cliched excuses will be trotted out. What are the root causes of this sickness that pervades Oldham?  FIRSTLY, the ineffectiveness  of  GMP and it's decline to the second worst force in the country. Led by a Chief Constable, who will tell us his force has a “zero tolerance” stance on alcohol-related crime and disorder, but who is  obsessed with plans for this, initiatives for that, floundering about as he tries to arrest the decline, but seemingly unable to grasp what is needed to return order to the streets.  SECONDLY, the sheer ineptitude and greed of Oldham Council in allowing such a density of licensed premises in a very small area. They have no ideas on how to create a thriving town centre and are willing to pass all applications for licenses, virtually without scrutiny, simply to make the town look busy and to rake in the business rates. Alcock et al will trot out the usual platitudes on why they can't refuse an application. This is the tail wagging the dog. Where there is a will, there is a way. Only last week we had Alcock spouting that,  '..  Oldham Council and our partners recognised that the availability of cheap alcohol was the chief catalyst behind the disorder we were witnessing.'  Who made it so readily available, we ask? Last year's crackdown on licensed premises in the town centre seems to have been quickly forgotten. THIRDLY, the government for introducing twenty-four hour drinking.  A ploy, the cynical may claim, to get the country so inebriated that we will forget just how awful the rest of our life has become. FOURTHLY, licensees plying drinkers with more and more alcohol irrespective of their state of inebriation. There is no responsibility. Profit rules.  Before any of them get up on their hind legs whining about how they operate responsibly. Let me inform them that a quick trawl through the town centre at weekend, reveals nothing has changed.
Change there will have to be, though. We cannot continue down this lawless path. Someone will have to grasp the nettle and sweep this town clean. We have got to do it and do it now!
B B W would like to offer his sincere condolences to the family of the young man and hopes the perpetrators are soon apprehended.