Oswestry like a weekend ‘war zone’, say cabbies
Monday 6th June 2011, 12:58PM BST.
Oswestry’s taxi drivers are calling for CCTV systems to be fitted in their cabs, saying they are vulnerable to abuse or attack from customers at weekends as the town becomes a “war zone”.
But the claims by the Taxi Drivers’ Association have been refuted by Oswestry’s police inspector, who says the town centre is far more peaceful now than it was a decade ago.
In a letter to tonight’s Oswestry Town Council meeting Mark Higgins, chairman of the association, says drivers feel the need for CCTV to be fitted in the vehicles, funded or match-funded by council or a crime prevention scheme.
The letter says: “Oswestry town centre is like a war zone at weekends and taxi drivers feel vulnerable to abuse or attack. The CCTV would not only protect drivers and passengers, but would give an extra pair of eyes to the police as they record not only the interior of the taxi but also face forward and record events in the street.”
But Inspector Jim Stafford said: “The volunteer-run town centre CCTV has led to a marked reduction in crime and anti-social behaviour.” The taxi association is also calling for more daytime taxi ranks.
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Perhaps the taxi drivers would like to repeat that claim to some of the troops in Afghanistan….
More OTT spoutings – and shame on Star for giving it so much profile.
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I hear that Misratians often describe their city as being ‘like Oswestry at a weekend’.
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Could it be that everyone is on that drug GHB that Oswestry seems to be famous for.
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You want it sunshine, you pay for it!
All you need is a laptop(which can be powered through an inverter)and a webcam, it’s not rocket science.
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A few years ago there was the ruin of a partially demolished building standing in a weed-infested site in Beatrice Street. Someone with a sense of humour had scrawled on the Wall “Beirut Theme Park”. Clearly on weekend evenings this now extends to the whole town. What happens in Oswestry is just part of the alcohol-fuelled destructive culture that pervades the whole of Britain. Firm action is needed to close down pubs and clubs that continue to serve drunks well into the early hours – a legacy of the last government’s love-affair with the big brewers who lobbied for 24-hour drinking.
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winging taxi drivers, if they want cctv then let them pay for it, why should we fund it, shops pay for their own, are they saying they are a special case, anyway they can afford it I have never seen a poor taxi driver yet
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Well done to the respondents for showing this to be what it is: an over the top claim to get media backing in a bid for council funding.
Newspapers remain embedded in the notion that bad news sells and until people stop buying into sensationalist rubbish – it will.
Just wish that for one week only, the papers would take a different tack.
Just once.
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A simple cost effective way to sort this is to refuse to carry that person/s who are causing trouble or abusive.
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Oswestry IS alot calmer these days. All of our hooligans are away fighting for oil.
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