Tonight John, Niki and myself went to a street meeting with the police, wardens and residents to discuss some of the atrocious events at the Three Score Park, on Caddow Road.
Young people throwing bottles at houses, swearing at residents, threatening other children, urinating on the play equipment, grafitti, revving their cars ... the list is endless.
The residents want a fence up between them and the park and also a signt to point out that this is a private road. Only the council won't do that because the road isn't adopted and the developers seem not to care. We are supporting the residents in their fight for this, but I do worry about two things.
Firstly that any changes provide a new target for these nasty thugs - they kick down fences as it is. And secondly if it does work, do we move these people onto the next community to harass? There seems to be no long term strategy here.
The police try their best but by the time they arrive the offenders have scarpered. So what can be done? What we need here is the rights of the law abiding residents being paramount. They shouldn't have to live in a fortress.
Changing the area with fences and chains is a good start but we need to tackle this behaviour at source. The police and wardens should patrol this area day and night to catch these youths and when they do they should be punished and seen to be punished.
We need to fight this as a community - the residents here should be proud of what they've done and now we need to support them.
2 comments:
You need to identify who are these kids, residents to take pictures on camera, planted stump cameras at the play ground for a period. If you can't ID these few trouble kids, you've lost. Remaining faceless is why these kids/groups continue. You might get a few broken windows in response, but once Identified, we can have justice and target these yobs back to their homes and parents, and see how they like been confronted with the facts at their doorstep
]Surely the answer is for police and PSCO to patrol, monitor rowdy kids, disperse them or escort them home and explain to their parents they are threatening and ASB, disturbing attitude hanging around in large groups. It only a few gang members, that are low on potty training.
Antony, what is needed is small CCTV or hidden mini camera similar to those used in fly tipping. These need to be placed and moved around the trouble spots, monitoring and identifying the main culprits, and arrive on their doorstep with their actions and ABC/ ASB orders, community service or fines..
This might only be for a limited time and might save an awful lot on expensive fences and hard pressed police that arrive 5 minutes after the yobs have scappered.
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