At the council meeting on Wednesday (14 June), the city hall coalition of the Greens, SPD and Volt tabled a comprehensive package of measures to improve the situation on both sides of the main station. The focus is on integrating social policy and public order measures.
Commenting on this, Andrea Blome, member of the executive committee of the Greens’ council group and of the Committee for Safety and Public Order (Ausschuss für Sicherheit und Ordnung), said:
“In preparing the motion, we held intensive discussions with the institutions, groups and individuals active on the ground. With our comprehensive motion, we want to tackle the undeniably major problems on both sides of the station in a sustainable way. More uniformed police and public order officers alone will not solve the problems; social policy and public order policy must mesh far more closely here than they have so far. For example, neighbourhood management is to become the central coordinating body for all municipal activities on the east side of the station.”
Sandra Beer, public order spokesperson of the SPD council group:
“With this motion, we want to reduce the number of places where people feel unsafe, improve the quality of public space on Windthorststraße and thus contribute to an overall upgrading of the neighbourhood. What matters to us here is involving everyone affected in implementing the measures, rather than having people driven away by the public order office and the police, as the CDU is demanding. That makes no sense, nor does such an approach solve the underlying problems.”
Helene Goldbeck, spokesperson of the Volt council group:
“Integrating people into work and creating a meaningful daily structure are crucial steps in promoting their participation in society. As other cities, such as Frankfurt, have already shown, inclusive work schemes such as the ‘Fegerflotte’ (sweeping crew) and the ‘Quartiersflotte’ (neighbourhood crew) can help keep places clean and strengthen people’s sense of security. Low-threshold, informal measures are of great importance here in strengthening people’s sense of belonging to their surroundings.”
Anne Herbermann, Green councillor for the station district, concludes:
“In addition to close coordination between social work, addiction support, the public order service and the police, the quality of public space must be improved – for residents as well as for guests and visitors. To achieve this, we need more urban greenery, more outdoor dining and sensible, attractive new uses for properties that are currently vacant. All of this is intended to upgrade the district in the long term.”
You can find the motion here:
https://www.stadt-muenster.de/sessionnet/sessionnetbi/getfile.php?id=529770&type=do
