THE late-night streets of Truro will be a safer place with the launch of a new project, it is hoped.
The Truro Safe scheme will fund street marshals to help keep order in the increasingly busy city centre late at night.
Organisers of the project said Truro Safe had no connection with Newquay Safe, the initiative set up in Newquay in response to incidents of violence and the deaths of two teenagers.
At full strength, the Truro street marshal project, which was piloted last year, consists of four marshals operating in the Calenick and Duke Street areas of the city between 10.30pm and 3.30am every Saturday. At the moment Truro Safe has enough money to pay for two marshals and will be looking for contributions from local businesses.
Inspector Mark Richards, from Truro police, said: "Truro has a thriving night-time economy and offers a great night out. Unfortunately, sometimes we do experience some incidents of an antisocial or violent nature.
"It remains a generally very safe environment for people to enjoy themselves and the work of our street marshal adds another layer of reassurance and protection to people in the city for a night out."
Truro Safe is made up of licenced traders, taxi operators, the police, Truro City Council and the Totally Truro Business Improvement District (BID), who identified the need for additional marshalling and taxi rank support in the city centre on a Saturday evening.
Neil Scott, BID manager, said: "Truro offers a particularly varied range of quality nightclubs, restaurants, bars and bistros making it an increasingly popular evening destination for many. So it is important that the city is a welcoming, enjoyable and safe place to visit."
Peter Masters, owner of the L2 nightclub on Calenick Street, said: "The city of Truro, and in particular Calenick Street and Kenwyn Street, enjoy a vibrant night-time economy and as responsible nightclub and pub operators we feel it is important to continue to invest in the safety of patrons and the community by contributing towards the cost of the street marshals which undoubtedly makes the city centre a much safer place."
