Most people associate anti-social behaviour to the younger generation of the area, but the truth of the matter is that any generation can be capable of it. We can spend years building community spirit and neighbourly harmony for it to be torn down by anti-social behaviour although usually by a tiny little minority. Thus it’s vitally important that we address this potential fly in the ointment while setting up our community.

Love thy neighbour

We live in an area of which 99% of us live in a semi-detached or four in a block houses and as a consequence, we all have neighbours who reside either directly beside, above or below us. It’s easy to think that because you have a what looks like a sturdy wall, floor or ceiling between you and your neighbours that they can’t hear you. But the reality is that we all live in houses that were built over 50 years ago and are not blessed with the best soundproofing. It’s not our job to come round and measure the volume of your music or whether you’re doing DIY at one in the morning nor do we expect or ask you to refrain from any such activities. All we ask is that your mindful of your surroundings and the time of day that you are undertaking them, please try your best to respect your neighbours.

The problem with youth

Neds, yobs, or vandals? Call them what you want, it’s all the same thing, and we aren’t talking about a new problem here. Since time began children and adolescents have always pushed the boundaries as to what is acceptable. We ALL did it in some form or other, to say you didn’t would be disingenuous. And sometimes that’s the problem, we look at these kids as if it’s all their fault. As if they were born that way and they should be shunned at every opportunity. We forget that we were once in the same position but maybe had a better society/environment around us at the time.

Yes, youth anti-social behaviour in all its facets is not acceptable and we would encourage you to stand with us against anyone who thinks they are beyond the law. However, we want to look beyond the current behaviour and begin the process of showing our children (and yes it is OUR children) the correct path to go down. We need to provide our children with things to do that encourage their sense of belonging within our community, we need to create opportunities for them to grow as a person, we need to give them positive role models to look up to. Sending them out the door every night to “go play” isn’t helping the situation especially when Linnvale has very little for them to do. Although you could argue that letting them spend their whole night on their phone, games console or TV isn’t helping the situation either. Hopefully, we can help find that perfect balance that children need to grow and develop into all they can be.

Linked into our vision for a new community centre is our hope that we can re-establish youth clubs, create new bespoke programmes that engage our youth and not abandon them. We want to teach our children life skills by bringing in local businesses and residents with experience in all walks of life to train our children to learn more than what is traditionally taught in school.

We truly welcome your input on this subject and hopefully like us your keen to help our children become a huge part of our new and improved community.