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Over 80 people attended a public meeting in the Saintfield Community Centre on Wednesday 17th July to discuss the recent upsurge in vandalism and anti-social behaviour in the town. The meeting was organised by Councillor Patrick Brown in conjunction with the Saintfield Development Association. Rowallane councillors Robert Burgess and Terry Andrews attended, councillors Billy Walker and Harry Harvey sending apologies.

Representatives from the PSNI; NI Housing Executive; the Education Authority Youth Service; Newry, Mourne and Down Policing and Community Safety Partnership and Choice Housing also attended.

Martyn Todd, Chair of Saintfield Development Association, opened the meeting by thanking Councillor Brown for organising the event, and the representatives from the Council and statutory bodies for taking part. He particularly thanked the many residents who attended, showing that they cared about Saintfield. He said, “In Africa they say it takes a whole village to raise a child. It also takes a whole community to deal with anti-social behaviour and vandalism. No one resident and no one statutory agency acting alone can solve the problem, but cooperation between everyone present tonight can make the difference.”

Over a dozen Saintfield residents spoke about their experiences of groups of teenagers causing damage to cars, houses, gardens and floral displays, mostly late on Friday and Saturday nights and mostly after the consumption of alcohol or drugs. Some of the youths were reported to be in their early teens but had been able to obtain enough alcohol to be “completely blocked”.

Inspector Darren Hardy of the PSNI explained the resource constraints they were under and that there was similar anti-social behaviour across their district. He said that they targeted their teams according to the numbers of reports received through the 999 and 101 reporting system. They stressed the need for Saintfield residents to report every instance of vandalism and anti-social behaviour. He added that the priority was to prevent criminal activity by young people rather than cause a young person to have a criminal record which could impact them for the rest of their lives. However, a young person would face the youth justice process if identified as having caused criminal damage.

Residents stressed the negative influence of alcohol and drugs on the young people’s behaviour and asked for more attention be paid to where young people were sourcing their alcohol and drugs.

Sean Brennan, representing the NI Housing Executive, explained that tenants of social housing were required to meet the requirements of their tenancy agreement and sanctions would be applied where there was evidence of tenants or their children causing problems. However, he said that the NIHE Downpatrick Office had only one record of a complaint about anti-social behaviour in Saintfield social housing. Residents expressed their astonishment at this as they had witnessed much more anti-social behaviour in social housing areas than formally recorded.

Sharon Hunt, representing Choice Housing, said that they had funded some youth activities in Saintfield in the past which were successful in reducing anti-social behaviour and could help again in the future.

Donna Weir, representing the Education Authority, said that she currently had no staff in the Saintfield area but had applied for a full-time youth worker for Saintfield in the longer term. In the short term she said she could place some resources in Saintfield at the hot spots at the weekend, but would need PSNI support for this. Although Saintfield is not regarded as a deprived area, she said she had flexibility to put funding in areas of “emerging need”, which Saintfield seemed to be at present.

Martina Flynn, representing the Newry, Mourne and Down Policing and Community Safety Partnership, said that she saw similar issues across the Council area and that a multi-disciplinary approach did work if it included diversionary activity, for which there was some funding available. She said the Council has access to Community Safety Wardens to patrol hot spots, but stressed again that they were deployed according to the numbers of reports received through the Council network or through the PSNI 101 phone line.

Councillor Brown told the meeting that the Rowallane District Electoral Area office, facilitated by the Rowallane DEA Coordinator, Ellen Brennan, have prepared a Rowallane Manifesto to prioritise activities for the next four years. The two highest priorities identified were mental health/suicide prevention and anti-social behaviour. Kellie Armstrong, MLA for Strangford, said that they had experienced similar problems in Kircubbin but these had been greatly reduced by the community and statutory bodies cooperating to provide youth activities and support for the PSNI. She felt sure the same outcome was possible in Saintfield.

Councillor Robert Burgess encouraged the PSNI to increase their presence in Saintfield for the coming weeks and “blitz the problem” urgently.

Martyn Todd closed the meeting by thanking the statutory agencies for getting involved to solve the problems in Saintfield. He said that one of the new volunteers to join the Saintfield Development Association, Sharon Young, will focus on developing youth activities in Saintfield and will be engaging with the relevant support agencies to ensure the best possible use of resources to reduce the youth problems in the area. He encouraged local residents, especially those with teenage children, to join Sharon in this valuable work.