The Haulgh: Managing Prostitution, Regenerating the Community Bolton Crime and Disorder Partnership

The Haulgh is a residential area on the outskirts of the town centre of Bolton. It consists of many large Victorian dwellings which have been converted into houses in multiple occupation (HIMOs). The main link road to Bolton (A666) lies next to the Haulgh and 100yards on is the industrial Shifnall Street area, the traditional venue of street prostitution. The close proximity of a sex market, easy access and extensive HIMO provision provided ideal conditions for establishing a cocaine market which attracted crime gangs into Bolton. This caused the Haulgh area to have a 24 hour problem of drug dealing, antisocial activity and a rapidly expanding sex market into residential areas. It also had an abnormally high rate of murder and unnatural deaths. This submission describes how the police and Local Authority tackled this problem by trying to isolate the sex market from provision of housing to antisocial tenants. It tackled the sex market by getting all the agencies, businesses and residents to agree a managed solution for prostitution.The outcome is that the problem is now contained within the business area and only at night. Efforts were made at the same time to change the nature of housing provision in the Haulgh. This involved some direct buying by the Local Authority, refusing planning permission for further HIMOs, placing asylum seekers in the area and putting less interested landlords under pressure to manage properties better, or sell to more reputable organisations. The results have been spectacular with a near transformation of the area. Prostitution is effectively controlled and managed to limit its antisocial impact. House prices have risen dramatically, antisocial behaviour has fallen and fatal or near fatal incidents have decreased significantly. Street dealing has ended not only in the area but has not relocated to another area of Bolton. Community satisfaction has increased immeasurably. We believe the submission contains many aspects of good practice in terms of curbing an expanding sex market, innovative use of housing policy in the private sector and contains some interesting insights into how flawed analysis caused the problem in the first place. However, the major lesson is that divorcing the provision of HIMOs to antisocial groups from the sex market not only regenerated the particular area but also stopped street dealing in the borough. More tentatively, we believe that this has halted the growth of the cocaine supply to Bolton and, as such, there may …