‘The community knew something was going to happen before riot’
A COMMUNITY campaigner has claimed Monday night’s rioting was something locals “knew was going to go on” following a spate of anti-social behaviour.
Lynda Sullivan has been running charity Ely Garden Villagers with her husband Peter for 17 years. The group aims to make Ely a safer place to live, by working with and changing the lives of children in the area.
But 58-year-old Ms Sullivan claims there has been a lack of support from local government to help combat anti-social behaviour.
She also claims she has been waiting eight months for area councillors to help her acquire a building in Ely to act as a base for her charity and provide a space for the children she works with – claims a Cardiff councillor has refuted.
Councillor Russell Goodway said rioters came from outside Ely to “exploit” the tragic collision and that those involved were not “necessarily local people”.
“We’ve worked so hard with the community to take away all the bad that’s been drawn to Ely,” Ms Sullivan said. Asked for her reaction to the riot, she said: “It was just one of those things we’ve all been waiting for to be honest with you.
“We knew something was going to go on. We see lots of anti-social behaviour… and unfortunately it does take something like this to maybe make a change. But will it?”
She added she feared that unless authorities work with the community, that would not happen. But she is positive Ely will “bounce back” from the violence.
“One thing I can say with the Ely community, when there’s something bad that happens like that, we might be the poorest, and we might be the most talked about in a negative way, but when something bad happens, the true community always will pull together.”
But Ely Councillor Russell Goodway said the campaigner’s claim that the community had been waiting for a riot to happen “does not bear scrutiny”.
He told us: “The most important thing today is to pay our respects to those two young people who lost their lives last night, and to think of the pain and suffering that their families are experiencing right now. I think that’s the most important thing that all of us should be doing today.”
The councillor said the riot appeared to be an attempt by people from outside Ely to “exploit” the tragic collision.
“What we are learning more and more, having spoken to the police, is that these were not necessarily local people. In fact one conversation I had earlier suggests that some of the people involved in the violence have come from quite a wide part of south Wales,” he said.
“All the indications are that social media enabled the area to become a magnet for those people who wanted to express their distrust and dismay with the police. And locally, the relationship with the police and authorities has improved remarkably in recent years, since the formation of the Community Safety Partnership between the council and the police.”
He added: “It is reprehensible that people from outside the area would exploit a tragic incident to make their way to Ely to vent their views that are totally unrelated – these people have no connection with the Ely community at all, they’re not acting or speaking on behalf of them, and I can tell you that the vast majority of people in Ely are shocked, they are dismayed, and they’re outraged by the fact these people have exploited this tragic incident in order to try to justify the way they’ve behaved.”
He also rebutted Ms Sullivan’s claims that councillors had not helped the charity find a building and that there was a lack of support from local government to tackle anti-social behaviour.
“I know that one of my council colleagues has worked hard, and so have I, with the council estates team to identify a building... we are still looking,” he said.
“Ely is one of the only wards in Cardiff that still has a youth centre... we have an outreach street base team... the youth bus is in the community, specifically targeting areas where there has been antisocial behaviour every other week, we have three youth mentors in the three high schools which children from Ely attend, and there is quite a lot of activity that goes in all of those spaces for young people.
“So to suggest this one charity looking for a building is somehow or other the cause of what happened last night does not bear scrutiny.”