Comments on: Vandalised Trees

By: cucco

cucco — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:46:57 +0000

I am pleased to hear some feedback on my previous comments.

That is one way to try to keep Kingsway a pleasant place to reside, get organised into Residents Association or something similar which is on the cards I believe.

Also pleased to hear that Bloor homes have accepted some responsibility for the trees…thanks on behalf of folk at Quedgeley Parish Council for pointing this out. Three cheers for a Council!

Yes CCTV can and does help in identifying the culprits responsible but doesn’t get to the root of the problem, "why vandalise the trees in the first place"? Ok this is not a sociological forum …so I shan’t put any suggestions forward.

All in all, I hope Kingsway continues to be a pleasant place to live…but large number of houses will create a few problems, lets hope they are only small and manageable.

On a brighter note there are some well established trees and beautiful gardens in Kingsway to admire.

Tatty bye

By: tony

tony — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:46:49 +0000

Bloor should make good before adoption, but if they are sensible then they will plant the trees the day before adoption to reduce costs. Then this becomes the local council’s problem. When they are next vandalised, they will claim that the repair budget will need to be allocated in the following year’s allowances.

The only way to prevent this is through local residents identifying those responsible or by their parents taking responsibility and explaining to their children that destroying property is wrong.

By: pleasant

pleasant — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:27:37 +0000

Since we originally spoke to Bloor, after further communication with them they have now agreed to re-plant the area and I quote: "What we’ll do it replace the trees during the normal planting season of November to March……. Unfortunately, no matter what we do, I’m sure the vandals will strike again so obviously, we’re not going to rush into replacing them, especially if the growing season would detrimentally affect them."
Its a ‘catch twenty-two’ really, yes Bloor are responsible for the land but why should they stump up the cost of replacements when as they quite rightly say, the trees are probably going to be trashed again?
In reply to one of the comments on this blog, this incident was reported to the Police and the Police did attend this incident, but this seems to be a total waste of time even though they are aware of who is responsible. I’m sure that when/if the trees are replanted its only a matter of time before they are damaged again and then what? While this gang culture seems to be prevalent on our estate what chance have we got? Meanwhile we now are looking at broken stumps and an unsightly pathway all summer long.

By: Clive

Clive — Tue, 27 May 2008 10:13:39 +0000

Hi lifeboat,

Please read my comment again (in context); I’m not “worried about the cost” of CCTV (and we weren’t talking about the underpass, we were talking about the approach to the small park, which is a different matter entirely).
I would be the first to agree that CCTV would be a great help for the underpass since my son (who was 15 at the time) was assaulted by a drunk (adult) there some 15 months ago!

If I recall correctly, during our recent meeting with some local councillors (detailed here), we were told that the bus bollard and CCTV for the underpass, are both “in hand” and should be expected fairly soon…
The bus bollard is expected to be operational from June 9th (I don’t recall being given a date for the CCTV).

I also believe that most of our “ASB” problems have been caused by youths from outside of the Village, and I read in a recent article in The Citizen that Quedgeley/Hardwicke was amongst the City areas which have performed better in recent months in this respect. Moving here from a considerably worse area of Gloucester, I have to say that it’s the nicest part of the City I’ve lived in, so I’m a little reluctant to start predicting doom and gloom when most local residents have - so far - found the area to be a very friendly and pleasant place to live. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to take all possible precautions and measures to ensure that it stays that way (or - in the case of the underpass - improves), just that I hate the thought of creating a bad reputation for the Village unnecessarily!

By: lifeboat

lifeboat — Mon, 26 May 2008 19:49:23 +0000

I agree with what Cucco says “I think it will be a bleak place to live in 5-10 yrs time… Early vandalism doesn’t bode well for the future”. Various issues have been raised with vandalism and graffiti namely at what I shall call the “Matalan underpass”; the Bus bollard has still not been fixed and racist and offensive graffiti on walls, with continued dumping of shopping trolleys and building materials combined with often large gatherings of youths throwing stones, urinating and shouting abuse; fortunately I have sent many emails and I am assured something is happening to combat this but I have yet to see any results. Kingsway would be an ideal place to promote CCTV but Clive is worried about the cost!
I have also suggested a device called “The Mosquitto”, a device than can only be heard by teenagers and obmits a high pitched frequency that stops gatherings of youngsters for long periods of time, tried tested and proven by councils to stop anti social behaviour.
Please dont get me wrong I have a young lad myself but I beleive that the vandalism is not caused by children from Kingsway but others from within Quedgeley, making our village a dump and giving it a poor reputation.