Kingsway Villagers

As mentioned in my post following the RA Meeting – 20/08/’10 (penultimate paragraph), details of the forthcoming Have Your Say Day are as follows:

The Safer Gloucester Partnership are to hold a “Have Your Say” Day in Thatcham Avenue, Kingsway on Saturday 11th September to ask residents their views of life in the area and if it is affected by crime or other issues.

This is a multi-agency event and there will be staff from Gloucester City Council, Police, Councillors, Housing Associations as well as volunteers from Neighbourhood Watch and the Crime Prevention Panel.

If any resident is interested in helping with this event, please telephone Pat Dabbs at Gloucester City Council on 01452 396984 before Monday 6th September.

We are meeting at Kingsway Primary School on Valley Gardens at 9.45 am and will be able to park our cars there.

We will have a briefing and hope to be out knocking on doors and talking to people at 10.00am.

We work in pairs – no one ever calls at a property alone and we do not enter into properties – all discussions take place on the doorstep.

We will return to the school for 12.30 where we will provide lunch.

Hopefully, we may complete the exercise in the morning (dependant on numbers of volunteers), but if not, anyone who is available will go out again in the afternoon.

We are going to cover all the properties in Thatcham Avenue.

I have been here now for 4 months. In this time I have had two Gnomes taken from my front doorstep and last night I had a big white planter taken from my front garden.

The sad thing about this, is that a lady of 101 years old gave this plant to my son 2 years ago and he has looked after this plant and named it after her.
He is very upset and wants it back.

I can’t afford to keep replacing items to make my garden look nice, but what is scary, is that I am being woken up hearing people in my garden or in neighbour’s gardens very late at night or in the early hours of the morning.

As I live on my own with my son, I don’t want to confront them for fear of repercussions, but I don’t want to be scared of going to bed and living in my home!

It’s a shame that these houses have no gates on the front gardens, if they did we could lock them.

So what the advice? Who do you turn to?

Hi folks,

Before I start, I’m generally an optimist and don’t like to moan, but wanted to share my decision with my fellow residents.

After living here for over a year now, we’ve decided that we’re moving out sometime next year.

The reasons are that we are bringing up a child who is 2 years old at the moment. We love to spend time as a family together and frequent areas such as the parks, or go for walks around the area we live in.

What spoils it for us are the more un-sociable residents who unfortunately live in the area. These range from youths that swear, spit and vandalise, adults (who you’d think know better) swearing, spitting and simply don’t care about the environment we live in.

Here are some examples.

We actually live in a small enclosed area, and all our 5 or so neighbours are fantastic which is a bonus for living here, but our house backs onto a road that is used by residents. Nothing wrong with that on its own, but a regular incident we witness is teenagers drinking alcohol as they walk in the street, swearing, spitting, throwing stones / eggs at houses, children (estimated at 11 years old) riding a motorbike without helmets around the streets. Incidents like this are reported to the police.

Having gone to the park recently as a family, a Mother there stepped in when her son was being picked on. Good for her I thought. Then she started to talk to three girls who she didn’t know and got into a conversation about the bully. She started swearing in her conversation with these three girls, who were no older than 12. I couldn’t believe it. She then left with her 4 children, who then started shouting the F word (thinking it was so funny) and the mother did nothing about it. They walked up the path shouting it. Couldn’t believe a Mother would allow this, especially in public with other young children around.

I was walking with my Boy down the road passing a house. The owner was in his garden picking up rubbish with a stick that had either blown or had been thrown in his garden. He simply threw the rubbish out of his garden and onto the path! I challenged him on what he was doing, but he said nothing and walked back into his house, slamming the door!

There are plenty more incidents that I witness on a daily basis that I don’t want to subject my little lad to as he grows up. I want him to grow up to be a good man, and influences like this wont make my job easy.

I simply don’t want to bring my son up in an area like this. Some people just don’t care about the area they live in, or have any manners, or even care about how they bring up their children.

It’s a shame really, as no doubt these people are the minority, but it really spoils the area. I’ve never lived in a place like this before.

Until we move, I’ll continue to make the best of the area, and do my best to help improve it.

Would welcome anyone to comment on what their thoughts are or what they would suggest, if anything.

Having recently attended the big park this morning, I was absolutely ashamed when I got there with my little child; the park was strewn with litter and the amount of graffiti evident within the skate park is not only offensive but is completely disgraceful.

I’m unsure if the litter was atypical of a Sunday morning but why isn’t this park being respected by the locals that use it? More to the point what was the point in installing a CCTV camera on the park, which is clearly not doing its job?

Editors Note: For more articles about ASB issues at "the big park" see:
 
Kingsway Community Walkabout: Results – (06/08/09)
Things that go BUMP in the night – (26/09/08)
Park Pranks and Kingsway Youths – (05/09/08)
Kingsway Park – Vandalism and ASB – (04/04/’08)
The Big Park – (03/04/08)
Kingsway Community Policing – (04/11/07)

Public Meeting for an update on the new Police Facilities at Waterwells
 
Location: Quedgeley Village Hall, 208 Bristol Road, Quedgeley
Date: Wednesday 2 June
Time: 7.30pm

Gloucestershire Constabulary is inviting Kingsway residents to attend a Public Meeting about the new Custody Centre and Police Operational Accommodation at Waterwells.

The UNITY consortium has been provisionally chosen to design, build, finance and operate the project. They will join representatives from the Constabulary to update the community on the new builds and answer public questions.

Everybody is welcome. We look forward to seeing you there!

I just received the latest Police Report for May 2010.

Statistics for Kingsway are remarkably similar to last year, as follows:

According to the report, crime is down by 36% from April 1st – May 10th across the entire area covered by the Quedgeley Police Station.

The report also mentions the Kingsway Youth Pod and last Friday’s school leavers celebrations (two of my sons were there – lol).
It also mentions an imminent Police Community Panel meeting (I’m on the panel) which will – as always – help to set local community policing priorities; you can influence this by filling out a Community Police Report every time you witness a crime or public disorder incident.

Previous local Police reports can also be found on our Community Police Reports Page.