Close neighbours with very different views of home ...
STANDING in the bright sunshine opposite Northfield Hall, a large community building located in the centre of Brackenhall, it’s hard to believe this area saw youths stage running battles with riot police 28 years ago.
Over two nights in 1992, cars were overturned and set on fire and 300 people were said to be on the streets for six hours attacking police and causing damage.
The violence was sparked by a police raid on The Phoenix pub, which had only been open for two days after 18 months of closure. Officers said it had been a hub of open drug dealing.
Today, Norfolk Avenue and its surrounding area is a uniform, homogeneous housing estate, where the vast majority of residents live peaceably side by side.
The last major incident to catch the media spotlight was in March, when a 12-year-old boy was shot outside Northfield Hall. But scratch a little deeper beneath the surface and there’s a massive gulf in how two neighbours living just a few feet apart, experience the same estate.
Vas Aslam, a 42-year-old, married, father-of-one, and a former pupil at Rawthorpe High School, knows the area well having lived here since 2013, while Caroline Augustine, a close neighbour and mum-of-two, has lived here nearly 12 years.
But they both have very different perceptions of the same area.
Vas says: “Out there you have to watch your back. I am aware of the drug dealing that goes on and the threat of violence is never far away. The new generation of youths seem to have taken it up a notch.
“But to be fair to the police, they are doing their job in targeting the drug dealers.
“My wife and I are considering moving. I have a 16-month-old son and we wouldn’t feel comfortable sending him to local schools.
“These youths are brought up to be anti-establishment everything - teachers, any kind of authority, police, firefighters, ambulance drivers - they basically just get up and blag their way through the day and make everyone’s life a misery.
“I bought a house here when I was 29 and I didn’t do my research. Deighton Carnival is the worst time, no question, the noise and sense of entitlement is something else.
“A lot of people around here won’t challenge their behaviour and I understand why - but I do and I’m going to continue doing so.”
Caroline, who lives opposite Northfield Hall, though, has a very different take. A learning mentor at schools across Birstall, she says: “I don’t mind, but sometimes I do swear under my breath at some of the stuff that goes on.
“Northfield Hall does cause a lot of problems, which is a shame. It’s the people who frequent it.
“I quite enjoy living here to be honest. The worst thing that has ever happened to me was some kid playing: ‘knock door and run away’ so not so bad.”