Residents in Mile End have said a resounding ‘no’ to new play equipment being built on their doorstep over fears it will be a magnet for yobs.Well, that’s fair enough, surely? No-one would want yobs near their homes, would they? The noise, the damage, the lowering of the house value…
Wait. What?
At a public meeting in Colchester Rugby Club in Mill Road on Saturday morning, residents from Maximus Drive told councillors installing a play park in their street would effectively wipe thousands off the value of their homes.Ah. I suspect these are Mark Wadsworth’s ‘Home-Ownerists’, rather than just people worried that yobs will spoil their evenings.
Commenters are on the money, though:
No! I am Spartacus says...You’d think so, wouldn’t you?
What kind of policing do we have in this country when we deprive kids of a play park because it may attract idiots.
Surely we should try to ensure they get punished to make it unattractive rather than take the nimby pimby way out.
But maybe this is an unexpected consequence of those house information packs Labour thought it’d be such a great idea to get everyone to complete..?
4 comments:
What kind of policing do we have in this country when we deprive kids of a play park because it may attract idiots.?
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Exactly. For all the usual blustering about 'Zero Tolerance' or Hogan-Howe's bizarre 'Total Policing' such annoying, low level but deeply disconcerting anti-social behaviour can have a huge effect upon those exposed to it. Safer Neighbourhood Teams are not around when they need to be i.e. when it gets dark so the bad behaviour simply gets worse and worse. A problem really has to get very bad for the police will move out of their target driven priorities - despite anything said by the new street warriors on any police blog who seem obsessed with being armed! So I understand why people would have concerns about yoots being given somewhere to congregate - not everyone is a nimby! If there was proper application of Zero tolerance/Broken Windows backed up by a justice system that actually cared about the rights of the law abiding majority over the rights of criminals things would be so much better. I can't see things getting any better.....ever.
The estate is typical of those constructed in the last 10 years. Houses are in 'loops and lollipops', of a pleasant version of English housebuilding pioneered in Poundbury, and arranged around handkerchiefs of green to mimic villages. The one outside the road in question is a large green, almost a park, a communal area. A place you'd expect to have dog walkers and maybe bikes and the odd ball game but it's not based on a suburban park but a country rural area.
People chose houses based on them bordering a particular kind of park; they didn't necessarily want to live next to a play area or they could have chosen one to start with.
What is interesting is that in this case, a play park in that location was always part of the planning permission and the developers, Croudace Homes, are ready to pay up the £20k to fulfil their contract.
In the intervening decade, however, the behaviour in the other play parks is alleged to be alarming. The householders are not unanimous in wanting a play park.
Approximately 30 people turned up to a meeting chaired by Myland Community Council’s chairman Robert Johnstone. It was resolved to ask the developers to use the money to landscape the green area set aside for the play park instead. Perhaps if the other residents had bothered to turn up the resolution would have been different.
The developers are being awkward over this; they are saying that if the playpark deal is off, they are under no contractual obligation to pay £20k.
http://mobile.gazette-news.co.uk/news/9335439.We_don___t_want_play_park_on_our_estate/
And do children actually play in play parks?
"If there was proper application of Zero tolerance/Broken Windows backed up by a justice system that actually cared about the rights of the law abiding majority over the rights of criminals things would be so much better."
Indeed! But, like you, I can't see that happening now. I think it's irreparably broken.
"The developers are being awkward over this; they are saying that if the playpark deal is off, they are under no contractual obligation to pay £20k. "
That's rather odd behaviour - surely the landscaping would cost less than the playpark?
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