Rick's St Mary's Diary

Last night I was walking through Prestwich Precinct and noticed a potential problem spot by the public toilet there. It's one of the new types of convenience, with the "Star-Trek" style sliding doors. Lots of young people seemed to be banging on it and making a lot of noise, and I noticed when the door slid open that there were about half a dozen young people using it as a place to shelter from the rain! They were sat inside making themselves very much at home!

I think we need to work with young people locally to find them real places to gather - not on street corners and not inside public toilets! I will talk to my Liberal Democrat colleagues to see if we can bring this issue up formally, and I will also talk to the police locally to see if there have been any other problems reported there. Some of the people I saw were familiar faces I have grown to know recently after conversations with the Police. The precenict is a family area, expecially at this time of year with the Christmas Tree on display. The barriers by The Retreat make it less appealing already and I wouldn't want anything like this to spoil it further.

So I will work to assess the opportunities for working with the young people of Prestwich to find out what they want, and whether we can do something for them.

Rick