FOR Cardiff are working in partnership with South Wales Police and Drink Aware to promote to visitors to Cardiff the best way to enjoy a safe night out. The campaign focuses on how best to approach people and the situation if you see someone being sexually harassed, to find out more click here.
Enjoy a safe night out in Cardiff city centre
With so many great bars and clubs in Cardiff, there are lots of options for a night out. FOR Cardiff are involved in a range of projects which help to ensure that the city is a fun and safe destination for a night on the town. Here is a list of all the schemes here in Cardiff to keep you safe and make sure your night out is the best it can be!
The Night Marshal Team
The Night Marshals work collaboratively with partners and members of Cardiff Against Business Crime (CABC) to help identify anti-social behaviour and work on crime prevention. They will liaise with city centre venue owners, door staff, Street Pastors and the emergency services to ensure Cardiff is a welcoming and safe city to visit.
The primary role of the Night Marshals is to provide a street presence in popular areas of the city centre and manage three taxi ranks, controlling queues and assisting vulnerable people. They will also act as night time ambassadors, offering advice and guidance to those visiting the city.
Cardiff Against Business Crime
After listening to feedback from businesses, we launched Cardiff Against Business Crime (CABC) in January 2018. Part of CABC is the secure radio scheme, CityNet, and in its first week of operation over 145 businesses joined the initiative. We wanted to ensure this was a cost-effective option for businesses and based on experience this is a potential saving in excess of £200 per radio per year (based on 2017 prices). As a result, we are very confident this represents excellent value for money and demonstrates our commitment to reducing your business overheads, whilst ensuring that radios are not cost prohibitive to businesses.
January saw the recruitment of a new Business Crime Reduction Manager, Ian Tumelty. His role is to work with
businesses offering business crime advice and training, ensure that all criminal activity on premises is logged and followed up and to ensure that the CABC radio scheme is working effectively. He is also the project lead on our
Purple Flag accreditation ambitions.
For more information on joining CABC and having a Motorola radio for your business, visit our dedicated website www.cardiffabc.com.
Street Pastors
Since 2008, the Street Pastors have been a welcome presence on the city’s streets every Friday and Saturday night. There are now over 60 Street Pastors working in Cardiff and during 2017 they gave out more than 1,300 bottles of
water, 1,000 pairs of flip-flops and removed 4,000 pieces od glass and bottles from the streets. The Pastors work every weekend making sure partygoers are safe during their night out.
This invaluable scheme was under threat of extinction due to lack of funding until FOR Cardiff committed to supporting this crucial part of the evening economy through a £20,000 investment.
The Student Safety Bus
FOR Cardiff worked in partnership with South Wales Police, Cardiff University, and Student Volunteering Cardiff (with volunteers from all four of Cardiff’s higher education institutions) to bring a Student Safety Bus to the city centre. The bus operated over 16 nights from 21.30 until 04.00 on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays and due
to FOR Cardiff’s investment the bus was able to double its operating times between the end of the Freshers period and Christmas 2017.
Whilst its primary function is for student safety, the bus has also assisted numerous other members of the public who have found themselves in vulnerable positions. The bus prevents the need for emergency services/vehicles to be tied up with incidents and links in regularly with the staff at the Alcohol Treatment Centre as well as supporting the evening economy businesses.
Purple Flag
Purple Flag is a nationally recognised scheme organised by the Association of Town and City Management which ensures the safety of the evening economy. FOR Cardiff has begun the process of achieving this standard. Ensuring that we reach these benchmarks will improve the attraction of Cardiff across the evening economy, from theatre goers and foodies to all night partiers.
Club Crew
The FOR Cardiff, Drinkaware and South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner’s OktoAsk campaign is supported by an intervention called Club Crew. Club Crew, a partnership scheme with South Wales Student Unions, safeguard Cardiff students by raising awareness of sexual harassment and supporting those who are vulnerable. The Crew work in pairs within premises throughout the evening, engaging customers, checking high-risk areas and ensuring that people leave safely when the venue closes
Vulnerability awareness training
Thanks to funding from FOR Cardiff, training is being delivered to all staff working within licensed premises in Cardiff on identifying vulnerable people at their door or in their venues. The training package provides night time economy staff the skills to:
- Identify vulnerability within the NTE;
- Know how to respond to trauma;
- Understand duty of care;
- Identify predatory behaviour;
- Understand consequences;
- Make a difference;
- Be confident to assist a vulnerable person;
- Be confident to challenge predatory behaviour;
- Identify the support available from their own premises and from wider services.
DrinkLessEnjoyMore
The Police and Crime Commissioner and Chief Constable launched the first phase of the #DrinkLessEnjoyMore campaign in early 2015 to help tackle excessive levels of drinking in our town and city centres by raising awareness of the law. The campaign achieved great success with a demonstrable increase in the public’s awareness of the law concerning the purchase of alcohol to and for those who are intoxicated. The campaign was accompanied by elearning to all bar staff in Cardiff. The training was based upon the accredited Award in Responsible Alcohol Retail and was amended to contain information to support bar staff in refusal of alcohol to those already intoxicated in support of the campaign’s key aims. In 2017, the campaign evolved to address excessive pre-loading and educate the public that entry to venues and service of alcohol will be refused to those who are intoxicated.