Concern over anti-social behaviour at gardens
DRUNKEN youths are gate-crashing the peace of Brixham residents whose sleep is regularly disturbed by their rowdy behaviour.
Battery Gardens has been claimed as a night-time drinking den by gangs of teenagers, to the dismay of nearby residents.
-
Vandalism is rife in the area, says Nigel Inman of North Furzeham Road, who was woken up on Sunday night by the sound of smashing glass.
Brixham Battery Museum has also suffered at the hands of the mindless yobs, who recently caused thousands of pounds damage at the wartime heritage centre.
Mr Inman, 53, a retired chartered surveyor, said he and his neighbours were rudely awoken at the weekend by a group of teenagers started throwing bottles taken from residents' recycling bins.
"There was smashed glass all over the place," he said.
"Everyone came out after they had gone and started sweeping the stuff up because you don't want glass left around.
"They were coming from the Battery Gardens area and walking back to town, obviously on drink or whatever else, and doing a bit of mindless vandalism."
Mr Inman says the neighbourhood has been putting up with this sort of anti-social behaviour for about five years.
"Last year they were coming back from the nightclubs in the town, they would kick the car wing mirrors in and throw bins over.
"It stops over the winter periods but starts again in the season.
"This time it seems to be the other way round, they all seem to be going to Battery Gardens for drinking sessions or whatever.
"You see them in several groups of three or four on Sunday evenings, heading towards Battery Gardens, then they come back late at night.
"There's never any peace around here in the evening.
"It wouldn't be advisable to go out and confront a large group of 15 to 20 youths who've had lots of drink and are in a boisterous mood — it's quite intimidating.
"All it needs is a couple of police to go around these well-known drinking spots on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights to make sure everything's in order."
Brixham police sergeant Dave Casley said the glass smashing incident had not been reported, but patrols in the area had stepped up following the recent vandalism of the battery heritage museum.
"We would urge anybody who sees or hears anything suspicious to ring us at the time," Sgt Casley said.
"Battery Gardens is the sort of area that can attract trouble. Once we are aware of any problems we will do our best to try and reduce it."
Comments
by Loon, Torbay
Monday, May 10 2010, 8:56AM
“Perhaps all the residents should gang together and take it in turn to sit vigil in the various shelters on Battery Gardens? No confrontation is required - all you need is about 4 or 5 fogeys per shelter armed with a thermos and perhaps some knitting. When the yobs turn up they may well try to "shock" the fogeys into leaving at first, but after a couple of hours or so their street cred will have descended to such a low level that they will give up and go somewhere else. Where I used to live I saw one middle aged woman, armed as mentioned, actually manage to clear and area of 25 youths within a couple of hours - after about four or five days of being forced to share their "haunt" with the lady they eventually stopped congregating there and never returned. Of course, if things turned nasty, the fogeys (armed with cameras / camcorders / mobile phones) could call the local Constabulary, and could be called on as witnesses to testify to any crimes committed. I think that the youths would have gone for good within a fortnight.”