Residents in despair over ASB around Windsor Street car park create mock poster
FURIOUS residents living near Stratford’s Windsor Street multi-storey car park are threatening to distribute leaflets satirising the anti-social behaviour blighting their lives.
Drunks, drug-takers and other using the building as a skateboard park and race track are making locals’ lives a misery, they say.
The neighbourhood has repeatedly begged police and Stratford District Council to help but say although there have been plenty of meetings, no action has been taken.
They believe the problem could be instantly eased by completely closing the car park, which is at the top of Henley Street, at night.
And they want signs put up in and around the multi-storey making it clear anti-social behaviour is not allowed and asking people to be respectful of those living nearby.
After continually being fobbed off by officials, residents’ frustration has bubbled over and they are vowing to take matters into their own hands.
They plan to hand out leaflets saying: “Windsor Street car park, open 24 hours for recreational use. Practice your handbrake turns and donuts, overnight accommodation. Public toilets closed at 7pm but stairwells and doorways available. Narcotics available, and drinkers welcome”.
They’re also planning to hand out free drinks along Tiddington Road or Birmingham Road to lure anti-social drinkers away from the car park.
One resident, who lives about 20 feet away, told the Herald: “We’re doing this out of sheer frustration at the lack of anything being done about the car park opening hours.
“We’ve constantly asked for signs or posters to be put up around the car park because of all the trouble that goes on around there. Despite them saying back in April they’d do this, nothing has been done so we thought why not advertise what this car park actually is used for?”
They added: “We are continually and blatantly lied to and told the main entrance to the car park is closed at 8pm which is not true and we have video evidence we have shared proving that it’s still open late at night.”
This follows months of communication and meetings about the anti-social behaviour in and around the car park, which has a broken lift, evidence of drug and alcohol use, a stench of urine in the stairwells, rough sleepers and ‘drinking clubs’ causing noise and disruption to local businesses and residents.
Others are questioning why the car park is kept open for overnight parking with the expense of lighting, when it is used by just a handful of vehicles.
It’s thought the prospect of it being demolished at some point as part of the Gateway Project development has left officials dragging their feet.
Local resident Chris Wall has been writing to and meeting with the council and police for many months. Anti-social behaviour has stopped his family being able to use the balcony of their home and prevented his visiting grandchildren from being able to sleep because of the noise.
He told the Herald: “Yesterday, I wrote again to the council highlighting the fact we still haven’t got any signage in and around the car park, although we’ve been waiting since April. The car park hasn’t been locked at night and they have raves and burn-outs there and even when they do lock it to cars, pedestrian access is still available.
“Our challenge is continuous and we want to know why isn’t it closed to everyone at night? It’s an incubator for anti-social behaviour.”
In April, a spokesperson for SDC said “a number of options are being explored and details of these will be released at an appropriate time”.
Stratford police have been conducting a survey in the area asking about the issues in order to help formulate and improve their response.
