King Charles' former university town bans street drinking over 'wild west' anti-social boozing
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The King's former university town has banned street drinking over what it called 'wild west' anti-social behaviour.
Drunken young men in Aberystwyth, where King Charles studied for a term before his investiture as Prince of Wales, have been accused of 'dominating' the town centre.
Charles lodged in Pantycelyn university halls during his time in the town and has previously said he has 'special memories' of his time there.
But councillors have said men out drinking have created an 'intimidating' atmosphere for visitors to the historic town centre's more than 30 pubs.
After a trial, the west Wales town has introduced a street-drinking ban for the next three years with police given powers to seize alcohol drunk outside licensed pubs and bars through a Public Space Protection Order.
Aberystwyth councillor Alun Williams said: 'We had a situation where drunk men were dominating the centre of Aberystwyth, not necessarily doing anything wrong, but creating a bordering on 'wild west' intimidating atmosphere.
'They were in control effectively and the police were powerless to do anything about it until they committed an offence.
'Once the order was brought in the police could quickly nip the situation in the bud, the softly-softly approach.'
Aberystwyth, where King Charles studied for a term in 1969, has been street-drinking after complaints of anti-social behaviour
Charles, then a prince, learning Welsh at Aberystwyth University's language laboratory before his investiture as Prince of Wales in July 1969
He added: 'Let's not throw away a policy that is working and has clear support.'
Ceredigion councillor Matthew Vaux said evidence supported the open-air booze ban.
'Data provided by Dyfed-Powys Police showed that, during the preceding 12 months, they attended seven incidents in which street drinking was identified as a contributing factor,' he said.
'The Dyfed-Powys Police Local Commander advised that evidence of this nature would be central to any application to renew the orders and that the relatively low number of recorded incidents made it difficult to demonstrate that the restrictions remained necessary and proportionate.'
King Charles studied at Aberystwyth University in 1969, a period depicted in the third series of The Crown.
Josh O'Connor (right) played the then-prince in the Netflix series The Crown, an episode of which followed Charles's time in Aberystwyth, where he was taught by Dr Edward Millward, portrayed by Mark Lewis Jones (left)
He was tutored by the Welsh Language Society founder Dr Edward Millward and faced protests from nationalists during his time studying.
While still a prince, the King said of his time at the university: 'I went to these lectures and most days there seemed to be a demonstration going on against me with a counter-demonstration, usually by splendid middle-aged ladies who got out of a bus.
'That was an interesting experience.
'I did my utmost to learn as much [Welsh] as I could, which in a term, it is quite difficult and I am not as brilliant a linguist as I would like to be.
'But my being here for that period did make an enormous difference to my understanding of the way Wales works and what I did pick up particularly was an immense sense of real community. It is a wonderful mosaic that I think makes the principality so special.'
He was hit by a walkout during his first public speech, in front of 8,000 people at the Urdd Eisteddfod Welsh language youth festival.
Recalling the moment during a 2008 speech, Charles said: 'This was basically the first public speech I had ever made, in an enormous tent with 8,000 people in it, so perhaps you can imagine what I felt like when I got up to speak, and so did quite a large number of demonstrators.
'I stopped speaking eventually as the noise was quite loud. Finally, the demonstrators were removed and I started again.
'As I started again, all the demonstrators had climbed up onto the tent so you can see these extraordinary sort of black shapes on the tent roof.'
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