The Bitcoin businessman battling to save Bedford from the brink

Times

2 days ago

Town centres are in decline. Coffee shop chains replace independent businesses, department stores lie empty long after closing. Disillusionment grows on crime-ridden streets. Yet few have the money or blind ambition to try what Peter McCormack has set out to do in Bedford, a market town that finds itself on the brink.
'When you ask people why they do not come to the town any more, they'll say either it's a shithole or it's dangerous,' the 46-year-old said. 'I warned the police that if they didn't fix it that I would. And they haven't.'
The businessman, who made a small fortune on bitcoin, has hired ten private security guards to patrol the streets every Saturday in August, armed with body cams and radios. It's a £10,000 pilot which he hopes will provoke a civic response. 'Because look, I could spend all this money and nobody comes into the town. And then it's pointless. It can't be saved. If people do not come to the town, it will die.'
There's a lot at stake. 'In less than a few years time, less than three miles from where we stand there's going to be eight million visitors and they're looking at this town and they go, 'Well, should we invest here, or should I go to Milton Keynes or […] anywhere else?' said Tom Wootton, the Conservative town mayor, indicating the Universal Studios being built next to Bedford. 'We've got a short window and a short time and we've got to make it work.'
On a drizzly Thursday in the town centre, more than 60 people, including those who work in support services and business owners, piled into McCormack's café, Real Coffee, to hear McCormack and Wootton speak. They murmur agreement. People don't feel safe. They are angry. McCormack laments the loss of the police station in town, while others share frustration at littered needles and bike thefts. They share horrifying stories of violence, including wielding shovels to scare criminals away from a rundown apartment block. Then a woman chimes in: 'The fear of crime everywhere, nationally, is greater than crime itself.'
She could have a point. John Tizard, the police and crime commissioner, told local press that antisocial behaviour was at a long-term low, and that McCormack was pulling a 'political stunt'. The council, in partnership with Bedfordshire police and others, have launched a new public spaces protection order. The police meanwhile have promised more visible patrols and a crackdown on shoplifting, antisocial behaviour and drug crime. Some have seen the efforts: Ghulam Khan, 55, has run the Al-Badar restaurant since 2006 and while business is slowing down, he often sees police apprehending suspects while he is delivering food at night. 'Three to four years ago it was dangerous, but in the last couple of years it is getting better,' he said.
When McCormack mentions reports that crime is declining in Bedford, laughter breaks out among the crowd. They don't believe it, pointing out a lot of crime goes unreported. 'Even if it is getting better, I want people to feel safe,' McCormack said. How people feel about crime rates matters as much as, maybe more, than cold hard data. 'My son always says, no one will remember how often you steam clean the streets. It's how unsafe they felt,' Wootton added.
Born and raised in Bedford, McCormack now owns the Real Bedford football club and bar as well as the café in town. He's the 'homegrown Bitcoin millionaire' bigged up by the mayor, and it's clear that McCormack feels a personal drive for Bedford's improvement, not least because of his own experiences. On the morning of his community meeting, he walked back into his café, saying 'He was threatening someone with knuckledusters,' a little breathlessly, pointing towards a grey-haired man who had just been bundled into a police car, a woman blowing kisses to him through the blackened window.
Most worryingly, there has been a sharp increase in assaults on women in the town, McCormack said: 'I would like to improve the safety for everyone in the town. But I'm the father to a daughter and the partner to a girlfriend. They're my primary concern.'
The security guards will function almost as scarecrows, deterring crime and calling the police when a crime is committed, he said. 'Will they be using their statutory powers to do citizen's arrests? No. That said, if one of them down the alley catches somebody sexually assaulting a young girl, I absolutely fully expect them to sit on top of that person and have the police come and look,' McCormack explained.
But some people are worried about McCormack's plan. 'I agree with the initial incentive but I still feel it's shortsighted, and will make already marginalised people feel more pushed out,' said Siobhan Moriarty-Jones, who works at the Cavalier Club Barbershop that offers free haircuts to homeless people. 'This feels like a neanderthal approach. We don't have mental health provisions in Bedford so that is the repercussions, such as drug misuse.'
McCormack returns again and again to discussing the 'plague' of drug addicts and drug dealers he sees pass by his café. He is sympathetic — he used to struggle with drug addictions himself — but 'cares more about those in the town who get up and work'.
Dawn Manu, a 65-year-old with lupus, has a list of complaints about the town, and its services. Yet she worries that using force ignores the struggles people face and could simply push them into prisons. 'I've kicked off in town, I looked like I'd lost the plot, but I am annoyed,' she said.
Perceptions matter, and people are wary of talking down a town that has much to offer. 'It breaks my heart when I come and I see all the problems because we've got some really fantastic shops and offerings,' Wootton added. 'A small element is ruining it for everybody, so I support anything that helps.'