Acomb Shops Project gets thumbs up from Traders

10.40.49am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 1st Oct 2004

At the meeting on the evening of 30th September at the Acomb Gateway Church, Front Street over 25 Acomb Traders welcomed the York Pride project to revitalise the area, dealing with visual improvements, and tackling anti-social behaviour. The meeting was addressed by;

· Cllr Andrew Waller, Westfield Ward Councillor,

· Angus Young, Street Environment Officer,

· Adam Sinclair representing York Business Pride,

· Philip Turpin from Encams (Keep Britain Tidy),

· Police Sergeant Mike Stubbs,

· Jacqui Tesslement and Gayle Johnson from York Cares, and

· Nick Wilson a partner at local accountants Smith Wilson.

Cllr Waller said "There was a positive feeling at the meeting that the many traders who attended wanted to actively work in conjunction with the Acomb Shops Project to make further improvements in the area. All the speakers made clear that this will be a long term project which will tackle some of the deep routed issues, and will regularly keep the 80 local businesses in touch with developments as they happen".

Adam Sinclair said "Improvements need to happen in parallel" so that shops did not feel that they were acting alone.

The meeting heard from the Police about local campaigns to drive down retail crime, and how there had recently been a significant increase locally in the number of businesses that are part of the RACY (Retailers Against Crime in York) initiative which was a positive step to work together to make it harder for the criminal element to operate in Acomb. There are now up to 40 ABCs (Acceptable Behaviour Contracts) across the city including Acomb.

It was agreed that efforts will be made for a pooled budget to bring CCTV to the Front Street area, but that this did rely on input from the traders to build on the funding that the council has available for the whole project.