Otley Run - starting the new year

We've worked with the police to confirm extra enforcement and safety patrols on the Otley Run to coincide with the new academic year. We want new students to feel safe and to set expectations about how to behave in Headingley from the off. The bigger crowds doing the Otley Run have been more driven by older participants, and anecdotally they seem to cause more of the bad behaviour, but freshers can be quite an unsafe time and that's why we asked for more support.

We're also working with a local charity to engage people doing the Otley Run in conversations about misogyny and safety in one of the pub venues.

Here's a run down of what we've achieved on the Otley Run so far:

• Introduced a ban on public urination, street harassment, and other anti social behaviour on the Otley Run - enabling police to fine people on the spot

• Campaigned for these fines to be increased from £100 to £500 - this has been successful! A change in law will enable this soon. Thank you everyone who signed our petition!

• Brought in and helped fund more long term policing on the Otley Run. There should be several officers every Saturday afternoon on the route, unless an emergency takes them away

• Changed local Licensing rules that have helped multiple new licence applications to be refused, and others to have special 'no Otley Run' conditions added

• Helped set up a new problem solving group focused on the Otley Run, bringing together campaigning residents with the police, council, and other agencies to look creatively at how we solve the problems

And here's what we're working on now:

• Getting financial contributions from the venues to pay for policing - it shouldn't land on the taxpayers when they're making big windfall profits

• Working with the venues to improve queue management, which causes a lot of the problems on particular streets

• Longer term looking at what legal changes could make it possible to reduce volumes on the Otley Run