My in laws live in the 'hood

[cromwell]

MrsC went to see her mum and dad yesterday and was somewhat surprised to see the parking area cordoned off with blue and white crime scene tape, and with two police cars in attendance.

Apparently someone shot the windows out of a downstairs flat about 40m from the in-laws house.
This is the story but the website is rubbish and dog slow.
http://www.wakefieldexpress.co.uk/news/ ... -1-8027326

They live in a council bungalow in a street which used to be almost all old people. With the lack of one bedroom social housing though, some younger people have been moved in if they have "a recognised medical condition". OK, fair enough, but some dodgy characters have been moved in from outside the area and my sister in law has seen what looked like a drug deal being done outside this flat a while since.

So best guess is that the people who live in the flat which was attacked owe someone money, and this was by the way of a reminder.

The in-laws aren't upset. FIL would be much more upset if his Sky sports channel went down and he couldn't watch the cricket!

[TheOstrich]

Oh good grief .... Mrs C. must be quite worried. Hopefully it's just a "one-off" .....

Any possibility they could be relocated, or are they stuck there, Crommers?

[Suff]

For me the perfect move would be to "encourage" the undesirables to move on.

It took the best part of a decade to get the Grahams out of Glenrothes. They were, then, moved to Aberdeen where the local gangsters control the drug dealing scene. They dealt with the "problem" over a few years. Only expense required a box for the Crem each time..

Glenrothes has one of the worst drugs problems in Europe. It suffers problems like this a lot but there are so many you'd have to relocate a quarter of the town to fix it. Your in laws have my sympathy.

[Workingman]

Sharlston, it's five miles past the edge of nowhere!

And when the police say shots were fired - what from? The article does not make anything clear.

I can see how it must have upset Mrs C, but hopefully it was a one-off I also hope that the victims and perps are know to plod and that appropriate action is taken.

[Kaz]

[JoM]

Blimey Cromwell, how scary!

We have a noticeboard in the village and I was reading the minutes from a parish council meeting one day. One thing discussed was the fact that people are being rehoused in the village from other areas and it's leading to an increased drug problem which is causing a lot of concern....so what do they do? Support a planning application for more social housing, therefore possibly bringing more problem families into the village.
We've noticed while walking Billy that it's quite a regular thing for kids to be walking around the streets smoking weed, and I was walking up the lane near the rugby club with Bill one day and there was a deal taking place up there in broad daylight. I really think the drug problem is getting worse. Tom and Joe's school would often be visited by the police with a drugs dog, doing a routine check.

Incidentally, Joe's been to town with his friends this afternoon and said he had a 'chav on a bmx' try to 'start something' with him as he walked past the dodgy estate on his way home. If Tom has a shift that finishes after the last bus has gone John picks him up rather than risk him walking past there on his way home late at night.

[cromwell]

I understand your worries Jo and I think you are right. there are a lot of disaffected kids about who seem to want to start a fight with someone, anyone.

Thing is, I grew up in that village. If you had said 40 - 50 years since (when there were more legally held firearms about) that someone in the village would have their windows shot out, people would have said that you were nuts. It's such a ridiculously unlikely place for it to happen, but it has.

[Workingman]

I hate to say this but it seems like the scourge of the cities is moving out to the villages and towns.

For the most part the councils and the police in cities have it under a sort of control, and cities also have drink and drug centres where these people can be helped or at least kept an eye on.

Towns and villages have none of that and the dealers know it.

[cromwell]

MrsC has been to the chip shop today (it's like Sky news central) and found out that the target of the attack is on licence from prison and is wearing a tag. He shouldn't even be at the property as the tenant is a young woman who he has shacked up with. He is from a "well known" local family. His dad was a drug addict who died from drugs. Other residents who have been moved in from outside the area include a heroin addict who has got a flat because addiction is apparently a "recognised medical condition" and an amphetamine addict who shakes and twitches all the time.

I wonder what the people who set up the welfare state would make of it all.