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Girls feel unheard over harassment faced in town

Danielle Hunt,Gloucestershireand
Carmelo Garcia,Local Democracy Reporting Service
News imageCarmelo Garcia The front of Cheltenham Borough Council's Municipal Offices. It is a beige-grey four storey stone building and is very wide. There are car parking spaces in front of it and a cloudy blue daytime sky in the background. Part of a tall stone planter can be seen in the foreground of the image on the right. Four flags are flying on the front of the buiding.Carmelo Garcia
Councillor Jamie Jamieson said it came across "loud and clear" that "girls feel unheard" about harassment

Responses to a survey asking young women and girls about their experiences of harassment in a town have highlighted "profoundly disturbing" issues.

The consultation in Cheltenham found only 16% of the 177 11-18-year-olds who responded felt heard about their concerns, and about 30% had been sent unwanted explicit images.

Cheltenham Borough Council's safety and communities cabinet member, Jamie Jamieson, said: "For a town like Cheltenham, which I think of as a pretty civilised place, it was very arresting."

A sub-committee has been created to come up with an action plan to respond to the findings and the council said it had already taken action to address some areas of concern.

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Jamieson said it came across "very loud and clear" that "girls feel unheard".

He said the report was "profoundly disturbing".

"They're looking for safer streets where they can stroll around and have fun with their friends without being harassed," Jamieson said.

"Harassment and related things like that do have an effect on their mental welfare," he added.

Richard Gibson, the council's head of communities, wellbeing and partnerships, said the "shocking" statistics were a "call to action".

Gibson said responses illustrated issues around feeling unsafe after dark and during race week.

"They were aware of the issues but not confident in us as professionals in being able to sort out and resolve some of their issues," he added.

Gibson said work had been done by the council and authorities, and added that a youth cafe in Smokey Joe's on Bennington Street had helped to address a concern that there was lack of things to do and safe places to be in the town centre.

Guy Lavender, chief executive of Cheltenham Racecourse, said the safety of racegoers and the community is always a key priority and they take "a zero-tolerance approach" to anti-social behaviour or criminal activity.

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