Local newspaper website launch article >>

about Halton pub watch & this website
Ian Seville, Police Licensing Officer for the Borough of Halton, Cheshire

Wecome to the Halton PubWatch Website,

Most of you will already know me, but for those who do not,
I am the Police Licensing Officer for the Borough of Halton.
I have held this job for the last four years, prior to which I served for thirty years as an operational Police Officer in Halton. Consequently, I think I have a fair understanding of the today’s problems in running licensed premises. Two years ago I started the Widnes PubWatch Scheme and Runcorn followed just before Christmas 2005. Since then both schemes have gone from strength to strength with dynamic leadership from their officials and unstinting work from the PCSOs. Each scheme voted to recognize bans issued by the other, effectively making any banning order effective in over 110 venues in the Borough.

Throughout these early days one of the main problems that has been encountered is the question of how do we know what these offenders look like? The Cheshire Constabulary has recently issued protocols that allow us to release photographs of known offenders to PubWatch members. Unfortunately, with a scheme the size of Halton’s this was impractical to operate. This website is a direct result of addressing this issue. Websites are not new in the PubWatch world. However, to the best of my knowledge, this is the biggest scheme of its kind and the only one that will carry
photographs in this way.
We are taking PubWatch into the 21^st century.

A lot of work, and money, has been invested in setting this scheme up but schemes are only as good as the people subscribing to them. I hope you will find this website invaluable, both as a source of information and communication, and also as a tool to help eradicate anti-social behaviour from your premises.