Youths cause £72,000 worth of Workington town damage
Last updated at 12:38, Friday, 16 April 2010
YOUTHS hanging around Workington town centre have caused £72,000-worth of damage over the last six months.
The figure was reported to police by town centre development manager Dave Fletcher at this month’s Safer Stronger Communities meeting for south Workington.
Mr Fletcher said that an empty shop in Pow Street, formerly Select, was flooded just before Christmas due to youths climbing on to its roof and blocking a drain, causing £20,000-worth of damage.
Three canopies in the town centre were damaged, costing £5,000 each to repair.
Two shop windows were broken in the last six months, costing £1,000 each to repair, and all four fire dry risers – used by the fire service to get water – had been broken.
Mr Fletcher added that the area under the multi-storey car park was a particular problem for youths congregating and causing damage.
Damage had been done to air conditioning units under the car park costing £10,000 to repair.
Light switches had to be replaced, at a cost of £5,000.
Mr Fletcher said: “It is absolutely disgraceful. We have to leave the bottom of the car park open for wagons to get in and people have been using it as somewhere to hang out.
“A lot of the money is going towards paying for people’s time to repair the problems.
“Despite all this the town is doing really well, figures are up on last year and traders are doing well.
“It’s just ridiculous that we have to spend all this money repairing damage.”
He added that the town centre team would not give up repairing damage.
A dispersal order for the town centre has been in force for seven weeks which gives police the power to move on groups if their presence is causing alarm or distress.
However damage has occurred during those weeks and Mr Fletcher said the order did not seem to be working.
First published at 19:31, Thursday, 15 April 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
How do they know it's youths? If there's evidence hand it to the police. However £72,000 damage in 6 months - you could employ three full time security wardens on staggered shifts for about £50,000 a year. Surely that's a cheaper option and creates employment. Althernatively the Police couls actually do their job and get out of the car and walk about.
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What about all the CCTV we have?! The town has more cameras than you can shake a stick at however we are unable to catch these people doing the damage. Do the cameras operate through the week or are they only used at weekends so the pubs can be blamed?! It's time the police dealt with the real criminals instead of fabricating issues.
Posted by Paul on 20 April 2010 at 08:54