Upsetting and frustrating

I’ve been doing this for sufficiently long now that, on the whole, things don’t really upset me and even the frustration that things take so long to do sometimes, I can just about deal with.

You’ll know by now that I’m endlessly going on about the small parts of Fazeley and Mile Oak where anti social behaviour is a real nuisance to local people. I think we are making some progress…. the public drinking restrictions will come into force shortly, the new police outpost in Mill Lane will be fully functional very soon and the public services in the area are firmly focused on dealing with bad behaviour and vandalism. That said, I do still have a real issue with the County Youth Service over their abject failure to provide much needed youth work in the area. It’s ‘toys out the cot’ time on that issue…. watch this space!

In recent weeks the debate on alleyways or ‘cut throughs’ staying open or closing has also brought in some pretty direct and robust views from locals on both sides of that debate. I hadn’t realised that the focus of that debate, the alleyway from Deer Park Road to Manor Road which has been closed for months while some houses were built there, was re-opened again a couple of weeks ago. Actually I’m annoyed I wasn’t told in advance, but I wasn’t.

Anyway, the opening of that alleyway has resulted in a return to the anti social behaviour problems that stopped whilst it was closed and so I visited the area this morning to talk to local people. What I learned was that the lives of some residents is being made unbearable by groups of young people hanging around into the early hours, getting drunk, damaging public and private property, generally being a nuisance and even evidence of some intimidation by them. The beer cans and cigarettes had been left from the early hours of Friday night as had a broken window from someone throwing a stone.

Listening to the despair of law abiding locals, some of whom have been there no time at all and others who have been resident in the area for 50 years is genuinely upsetting to me. And they are so reasonable about it too! Despite the fact they are having a miserable time again now they can totally appreciate the wishes of many people to keep the alleyways open. It was even more upsetting that they were so reasonable about it all. Someone I met burst into tears when I started asking them how things were.

So, early next week I’m going to refocus my attention on this problem. My meetings this morning have come up with some possible new solutions which wouldn’t necessarily need to close the alleyways. I need to investigate those ideas further and above all really do what is needed as quickly as possible. One way or another this will be sorted out, I promise.

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