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It seemed that where ever you went on the estate the children as young as 6 or 7 to 12 or 13 would have this passion of throwing stone at any one who was an unwilling target, if there was no human target a car or a bus would do.

We tackled this with the help of our PCSO, together we went door to door to ask for residents to report and make statements of this behaviour. This was hard going at first because if these kids found out which they were bound to do eventually, they would go out of their way to ensure you got your fair share of stones.

In time we did get statements, it only take 3 such instances of minor antisocial behaviour to apply for a GRIP order. The ICA followed this intervention up with circulars going to all homes explaining how and why a GRIP is given, and threatened to name and shame culprits if this type of ASB did not stop (In this instance we would not have named and shamed because of the age of the culprit, but the parents did not know that)

When we decided to form the ICA it was decided to take out a questionaire, the antisocial behaviour was so bad at that time we had to get the police to escort us. On one particular road there was 2 groups of between 12 or 13 sitting on garden walls on each side of the road. Their age was from young teenagers to the early twenties, they had been drinking most of the day when we approached. Both ourselves and the PCSO's were abused, sworn at, intimidated and threatened, a bit scary but we just ignored them as best we could, although one of our members got manhandled for a while. This was the first of many threats against us.
	It seemed that where ever you went on the estate the children as young as 6 or 7 to 12 or 13 would have this passion of throwing stone at any one who was an unwilling target, if there was no human target a car or a bus would do. We tackled this with the help of our PCSO, together we went door to door to ask for residents to report and make statements of this behaviour. This was hard going at first because if these kids found out which they were bound to do eventually, they would go out of their way to ensure you got your fair share of stones. In time we did get statements, it only take 3 such instances of minor antisocial behaviour to apply for a GRIP order. The ICA followed this intervention up with circulars going to all homes explaining how and why a GRIP is given, and threatened to name and shame culprits if this type of ASB did not stop (In this instance we would not have named and shamed because of the age of the culprit, but the parents did not know that)
An ongoing problem and one that is difficult to target is 'playing football in the street'. We had a few different versions of this problem, but as we had no green area's to play football on, a wall would do, or just as good someone's window or front door would do just as well. On our estate we had flats which had a picture window which went all the way down to ground level, as there was no private garden this meant that football would be played directly outside a tenants window. The size of the windows was such that these made ideal goals. Even if they played along side this window the effect was if you had a football match right in your living room. Many a person has almost gone insane with the continuous noise and abuse if you they objected. The disturbance was bad enough if the youngsters played, but when after a few drinks of alcohol the parents joined in all hell was let lose. Footballs would be bouncing on house roofs, car bonnets took a pounding, passing cars had to run the gauntlet and old dears felt intimidated and terrified by the language and threats.	We had to do something, it would be tough on the kids but things could not be aloud to continue, so we decided a no tolerance attitude would be taken. By the way it is an offence to play football in the street and if you are a tenant there will be a clause in your tenancy agreement under antisocial behaviour. Our first action was to write to these people pointing this out, we then got the police to send out a warning letter with a further copy of the law and to ensure every one understood their position. We also managed to persuade the local housing office to do the same. We were not very popular to say the least. For months we had to go out to face these antisocial people and disrupt them, after quite a few threats to us and many warnings from the police we got on top of the problem. It was nerve racking and we aged over night but we now have some resemblance of order in our streets. Yes some children do play on the odd occasions but as long as they create no problems or have any complains from neighbours we turn a blind eye. Our next task is to try to fund an area for these children to play, we will succeed, we have no alternative. If you hadn't sat in your living room and had to put up with the thump, thump of a case ball along with scream and shouts, including swearing and abuse perhaps you will not understand our stance, our residents did and can now have that peaceful hour which they rightly deserve.
There were people would be approached outside local shops by youths who would approach customers and ask them to purchase alcohol for them. This obviously intimidated shoppers, people were scared and intimidated and the problem of youths fuelled with alcohol were creating serious ASB problems all over Ingol. The ICA produced posters offering a (click here for £200 reward poster)for any information and convictions for the supply of alcohol to the youths, we placed them in the widows of the local shops, it highlighted to the shoppers that we were watching them. We had great help from Marion who has worked in a local shop for many years and her fellow workers who at stages were intimidated and abused but the problem has been minimised
Whenever possible, we attended court, when these people were being tried. We did this to show the courts our support and to let the accused know that our estate would no longer tolerate their behaviour. An action that once again received high praise at reassurance meetings.
We had one individual on our estate that caused no end of trouble and mayhem. He was a ring leader of group that frightened people of all ages. He had convictions for all sorts of offences and had spent time in prison for ABH when he 'bottled' some one. He, unfortunately, was never dealt with properly by courts and this led him to think that he could rule the estate, in fact he would walk around the estate with his anterarge claiming he 'ruled the estate', he really thought he was the almighty king pin, all the teenagers looked up to him. With everything that we achieved over the months some residents had gained enough confidence to start reporting all his activities. This meant, that through reassurance, we could proceed for an ASBO. We were tasked at the reassurance meetings to obtain as much information we possibly could to secure the ASBO. After some considerable time we and the police managed to obtain 54 statements against him for antisocial behaviour thus obtaining the well deserved ASBO. We decided to publish the details of the ASBO along with a picture to inform all residents that if they saw him on th estate to ring the police immediately. Not only was this the first of its kind in Preston but many senior police officers believed it to be the first in the country, another great coup for all concerned. This made us unpopular with his little army, our comments to them 'who's next then. The leaflet and subsequent repeat in our newsletter was such a success that when he breached his ASBO, almost immediately the information relayed to the police and us was substantial. This led him to be further convicted and as such we have had no trouble from him since. We, by no means, say that everything that has been achieved is solely down to ourselves but it proves that a strong association working in partnership can acheive much.
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