City's night-time economy wins safety award

Coventry's night-time economy has been awarded an international accreditation, recognising the city as a safe destination after dark.

The city has been given Purple Flag status, highlighting Coventry city centre, Earlsdon High Street and the Kasbah in Primrose Hill Street as providing a safe, entertaining, diverse and enjoyable night out.

Coventry City Council said it had worked with the Business Improvement District (BID) and police in a bid to ensure positive night-time experiences in the city centre.

This included relaunching the Ask for Angela scheme, providing a way for people feeling vulnerable in a bar or venue to discreetly ask for help from staff.

As part of the scheme, 150 people completed training over the past 12 months.

Other work included licensing and compliance activity, taxi safeguarding checks, and installing 100 public defibrillators and bleed kits over the past three years, the city council said.

In this time, the BID has also purchased 200,000 safety items for venues to distribute free of charge, including DrinkSafe anti-spiking covers, bottle toppers and DrinkSafe testing strips to allow venues to spot-check if a drink has been spiked.

The council said its licensing team also worked with Coventry BID on the Best Bar None scheme, highlighting venues which excel in safety, training and customer experience.

Taxi marshals have also been introduced in the city centre to help people get home safely and Coventry BID's street patrol team has expanded its service to cover the evening to deter crime and antisocial behaviour.

The local authoroity said the city welcomed independent assessors from the Association of Town Centre Management in November, who spent a full day and night in the city centre and visited pubs, bars, restaurants and nightclubs.

Joanne Glover, chief executive of Coventry BID, said: "The safety of visitors to the city centre is our highest priority, so it is fantastic to have received Purple Flag recognition after many years of hard work across the city.

"This was a true partnership effort, not only with the key partner organisations, but also our brilliant community of businesses, who have gone above and beyond at all stages and proved the power of partnership working in Coventry."

Councillor Abdul Salam Khan, deputy leader of Coventry City Council, said: "We want our city centre to feel safe and welcoming and I'm grateful for the efforts of the Council, Police, BID officers and Coventry Street Pastors as well as so many hospitality venues in helping achieve this.

"The assessment process helped us showcase the city's many fantastic venues and the feedback we received from the assessment team was overwhelmingly positive."

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