Put respectable citizens first

It was good to read in the PT that members of Neighbourhood Watch groups across the city are getting together to place leaflets requesting more considerate parking on vehicles causing an obstruction or damage to grass verges.

Obstructive and damaging parking is just oneof many aspects of anti-social behaviour which senior police officers consider it is no longer their duty to control.

You reported in the same issue that the police decided that a man living in a van and using a children’s play area as a lavatory was not committing an offence.

A few days ago I told two police officers in Cattle Market Road that three young men were sitting on a bench in Stanley Recreation Ground 1 50 yards away drinking alcohol with empty cans and bottles strewn around them. This is a designated no drinking area and the officers said they would look into it.

Fifteen minutes later the same young men were still there drinking undisturbed and had been joined by four more.

The next day I phoned the council to ask that at least the large amount of cans and bottles in the recreation ground should be cleared away and to confirm that it was a designated no drinking area.

In reply I have been told that this is the case but unless a disturbance is taking place it is not considered to be antisocial behaviour so no action will be taken.

Senior police and council officials may well live in areas more salubrious than Peterborough has become, but they need to understand that there are many council-tax paying residents like me who have had enough of watching their environment being degraded.

I n this respect we are not being well served by these handsomely-paid officials.

It is high time they adjusted their priorities and put the rights of respectable citizens before those they have constructed for the anti-social minority.

David Lennox Peterborough