Street angels coming out in festive force

Dec 5 2008 by Jenny Wood, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

PEACE and goodwill will be extended in the streets of Perth this festive season during the relaunch of a successful Christmas campaign.

A raft of measures have been introduced to ensure festive fun stays safe in the Fair City this season and Perth’s legendary street pastor scheme will be extended to play a pivotal part to keep partygoers free from harm.

Since the scheme was introduced in March street pastors have proved a massive hit with revellers on Saturday nights from 10pm until 4am.

The volunteers, drawn from seven Perth churches dish out everything from flip-flops for sore feet and blankets for the party weary hitting the chill of outdoors, to providing a friendly, patient ear to listen to life’s problems.

Mike Archibald is in charge of the local group of street pastors. He explained: “It has been a fantastic success.

“We get a great reception from the people we meet and, because they know we are only there to listen and care, we have never had any abuse or bad remarks shouted at us.

“It is tiring but great fun and we meet some great people.”

And in a festive boost, the 62-year-old added: “From tonight we are going to be out on Friday nights as well as Saturdays.”

The street pastors operate in the city centre and will play an important part in this year’s Operation Festive Homesafe, launched yesterday (Thursday) in Perth.

Perth police are the driving force behind the Festive Homesafe campaign aimed at ensuring people in the Fair City enjoy a safe and secure season. Past results have seen as much as a 20 per cent reduction in serious and violent crime in the city centre.

Officers will be deployed at times and places where police analysts have pin-pointed previous trouble, they provide a high-profile and reassuring presence to nip trouble in the bud.

At yesterday’s launch of this year’s campaign, Chief Superintendent Matt Hamilton, vowed the police would take a hard line with any troublemakers tempted to spoil the festive fun but also appealed to revellers to celebrate sensibly.

“There are always a small minority of people who go out with the intent to injure people at this time of year,” he explained.

“We want to send out the message that anybody going out of their way to injure somebody will be dealt with.”

And Chief Supt Hamilton added: “Safety is a big concern at this time of year as people who are out to enjoy themselves often drink too much.” He advised having fun is fine, but to take it easy.

And as well as targeted policing and the supportive role of street pastors, taxi-rank marshals will also return to the festive safety campaign to assist homeward-bound partygoers in Perth city centre.

Ian Campbell, safer cities manager, explained: “The taxi rank marshals will monitor the queues near the end of the night and keep an eye on people.

“The object, with the help of the street pastors, is to ensure everybody gets home as safely as possible and taxi drivers can carry out their business as normally as they can,” he said.

And Perth and Kinross Council is also adding its support to the safety campaign. Staff from their environmental services team will be deployed to ensure rubbish from the night before is cleared away before shoppers and visitors hit the town in daylight hours.