[From the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 17th June 2013
DRINKERS on the Real Ale Trail got a shock when they turned up in Marsden on Saturday lunchtime hoping for a quiet pint.
Greeting them off the trains were a posse of mounted police accompanied by police officers on the ground dotted around the village.
A single train stop can see more than 50 young men being disgorged on to the platform before they set off snaking through the village in search of a good time.
The police presence – which some drinkers saw as “heavy-handed,” and “over the top” – comes after landlords and brewers agreed that a crackdown was needed on bad behaviour at weekends.
The popular trail, which runs from Manchester to Leeds via the Colne Valley, Huddersfield, Mirfield and Dewsbury has been ‘hijacked’ by hen, stag and other parties.
It began four years ago as an enjoyable day out for genuine real ale enthusiasts after a TV programme popularised the route, but since then residents have become fed up with revellers’ increasingly anti-social behaviour.
There have been numerous incidents of drinkers vomiting in people’s gardens and urinating in the streets as well as more intimidating behaviour.
In one infamous incident a Marsden resident, Dorothy Lindley, was shocked to find a drinker sitting in her living room last summer.
And there have even been occasions when drunk men and women have been witnessed running on the railway tracks, endangering their own lives.
West Yorkshire Police and British Transport Police have promised a crackdown.
The Examiner revealed that a new group comprising landlords and brewers from Stalybridge to Dewsbury had been set up to combat the menace.
The Real Ale Trail Licensees scheme (RATL) say participating pubs, including The Riverhead, Marsden, will not be serving lager, shots, spirit doubles, cider and other tipples favoured by binge drinkers on Saturdays.
But Daniel Wyness, 27 from Bradford who was enjoying a drink at The Railway pub in Marsden with his friends Adam Keath and Luke Dawson, said he was shocked at seeing the mounted police when he got off the train.
He said:
“It felt like I had come to a football match when we saw the mounted police unit.
“We have just come out for a pleasant day out and are having to drink our beer in plastic glasses.
“The trade this trail brings is obviously good for the local economy but if it’s getting out of hand then it’s counterproductive, it seems a bit like one of those Mediterranean islands that get invaded by the Brits.”
Maggie Holmes, a building society manager from Sherbourne-in-Elmet, near York, was out with three girlfriends.
She said:
“It’s been excellent. We have had a good day out but I do wonder at the cost of this kind of policing and the resources that have been poured into this.
“We come from villages and we would be absolutely mortified if this was happening on our doorstep.”
Her friend Joanne Gascoigne, a nurse from Leeds added:
“I feel sorry for the villagers” but she joked: “I am most upset that there’s no doubles being served!”
One of the mounted police officers, Adrian Simpson, said:
“If we are helping to stop things getting out of hand then that’s great.
“It’s the second weekend that West Yorkshire Police have run it and it was really, really busy”.
Read more: Examiner http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/local-west-yorkshire-news/2013/06/17/real-ale-trail-revellers-greeted-by-mounted-police-in-marsden-86081-33482477/#ixzz2WSuU9wyC
[plus, from the Dewsbury Reporter, 17th June 2013]
Drinkers on the Real Ale Trail were met by mounted police when they got off the train this weekend.
As they stepped off the train at Marsden on Saturday they were greeted by police on horseback.
It coincided with the start of alcohol sale restrictions along the Transpennine rail route of pubs along the line between West Yorkshire and Manchester with some landlords introducing bans on selling lager, doubles, shots and other binge-drinking tipples.
It is part of a crackdown on booze-fuelled behaviour on the trail which runs from Leeds to Manchester through Dewsbury, Mirfield and Huddersfield along the Colne Valley.
There are concerns that the Real Ale Trail has been hijacked by stag and hen parties with complaints including of drunken revellers being sick, jumping in canals, running on the train line and intimidating other passengers.
Chief Supt Tim Kingsman of Kirklees Police, said:
“We are aware of concerns in communities on the Real Ale Trail regarding anti social behaviour on weekends and we are working closely with partners to address these matters.
“West Yorkshire Police are providing additional patrols including mounted officers at key times to reassure residents and deter offending.
“Policing alone will not fully resolve the issues and we are building on existing partnership work with colleagues from agencies such as British Transport Police, Kirklees Council and licensees to put in place various measures to allow Real Ale Trail users to enjoy the experience safely and responsibly while also ensuring communities on the trail are not blighted by frequent poor behaviour by those who might seek to abuse it.
“Residents in communities such as Marsden should quite rightly not have to put up with drunken or loutish behaviour and it will not be tolerated by Kirklees Police and our partners.”
Publicans and brewers along the route have formed the Real Ale Trail Licensees scheme and have recently introduced restrictions on Saturdays along the Batley to Stalybridge stations route.