fc
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Posts: 2
Date Registered: 09/08/2010
Problems with wall-hoppers
Date: August 09, 2010 06:00AM
Hi all,

I'm a resident of Aiken's Village and I realise that both our estate and Sandyford Hall have been having problems with wall hoppers. However, this activity has recently taken a nasty turn on our side. Up until last month the worst that has happened has been some graffiti and a little bit of noise, nothing to make an issue of anyway. However, in the last few weeks youths crossing over the wall have broken street lighting, egged houses and have been agressive and insulting to residents who have confronted them. This culminated last week when they overturned a car, which spilled petrol all over the road and required the fire brigade to come out and dump sand over it. On top of this, the manager of the shop on our side has been complaining of the same group loitering and even shoplifting.

While I don't seek to accuse anyone, and it may even be that these youths are not from Sandyford Hall, but are merely coming through your estate into ours(in which case I'm sure you're having the same problems), these kids are definately not from Aiken's village or Belarmine and have been witnessed crossing over the wall from Sandyford Hall.

Both of our residents associations are planning to meet soon, and this will be an issue they will discuss, but I thought I would give you all the courtesy of some advance warning. It is our intention to work with the gardai to identify these individuals, find out where they live, and to take all action necessary to put a stop to this, including prosecution if need be.

The group consists of approximately 6-7 boys, aged between 15-18. If you are the parent of a teenager who crosses the wall with or without friends, please make them aware of what is going on here, as whether they are involved or not there will be severe consequences if this continues and they may get caught up in it.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope that these issues will be swiftly solved by the residents associations.

mwebb
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Posts: 18
Date Registered: 03/10/2008
Re: Problems with wall-hoppers
Date: August 09, 2010 11:23PM
There is currently some antisocial behaviour by a small group of teenagers in the estates stretching from Ballyogan to the Enniskerry Road. It's unclear where these teenagers live and the only thing that is certain is they are from the catchment area. I have seen these teenagers but don't know any of them from Sandyford Hall. But each estate believes they are from somewhere else, and its an argument that doesn't seem to be improving the situation.

My advice to anyone who sees any antisocial behaviour is to call the Gardai, each and every time. Even if they don't respond, it still gets recorded and builds up to a point that it will be dealt with. Also if you are confident enough, confront those doing it. If possible take pictures of them.

I walked by Grianan Fidh one evening a week ago and saw in the distance a nice big log enabling people to climb over the wall. I was frankly shocked that people living in Grianan Fidh would allow that to remain there for more than a couple minutes. You have to make it difficult for these people. Don't expect your management company to do it. The moment you fail to react to antisocial behaviour, it gives the signal to these groups that they have carte blanche in your area.

The thread is titled 'wall hoppers', but it should be said that the new path being constructed to allow hundreds of residents from Belarmine/Aikens to walk through our estate everyday is only going to make the current anti-social problems a whole lot worse. The Sandyford Hall Residents Association opposed the new access to our estate on the basis of anti-social behaviour and security problems coming from the Belarmine/Aikens area. But the council ignored us. To add insult to injury, the current problems began by residents coming from the Grianan Fidh side, hopping the wall for a short cut, which was later copied by teenagers.

I agree that the solution is a group effort from all the resident associations in the area, working together, with the gardai, to meet this problem head on, as continued inaction will only make the situation worse IMO.

I also think mutual respect between the estates in the area would help create a better community that's more capable of dealing with issues like this.

d18
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Posts: 20
Date Registered: 17/10/2008
Re: Problems with wall-hoppers
Date: August 13, 2010 09:45PM
No one welcomes groups of teenagers causing trouble. Unfortunately the shops at Sandyford Hall are a gathering point for mobile groups of youngsters from all over from Ballyogan to Kilcross. On the Gallops website teenagers from Sandyford Hall are also found guilty without trial

see
[sites.google.com]

or 'The main problem is a gang of up to 20 youths aged 15-17 years of age from Sandyford Hall, who are walking up and down to the playground green area through the laneway.'

I would like the Garda on the pushbike to include these estates on his rounds. I suspect that any teens damaging property do so far far from their own home base. I have not observed Sandyford Hall teenagers behaving particularily badly. Sandyford Hall is a place passed through a lot by different groups getting from place to place. Let us all keep the Gardai involved.

You may see a group of teens around the shop where alcohol is sold, but I assure you the faces are different every day, and a group of teens coming out of sandyford hall are not always 'sandyford hall teenagers' but may be some customers of the retailers at the entrance to sandyford hall.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 19/08/2010 06:01PM by d18.

Chair
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Posts: 22
Date Registered: 25/11/2008
Re: Problems with wall-hoppers
Date: August 23, 2010 04:10AM
This
> culminated last week when they overturned a car,
> which spilled petrol all over the road and
> required the fire brigade to come out and dump
> sand over it.

I assume this incident was reported to the Garda, I'll be attending the area NHW meeting in Blackrock Garda station tomorrow (23rd August) and wil lseek an update from Sgt John Troy as to what the current situation is regarding this.

d18
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Posts: 20
Date Registered: 17/10/2008
Re: Problems with wall-hoppers
Date: August 25, 2010 04:54PM
there is a lot of internet discussion recording a lot of unwelcome trouble making in the area from belarmine to the gallops, I am copying one below from the belarmine.com site after observing some 13-16 year olds who may not have been local but appeared to know some local youngsters though the schools, unpleasantly hassling some very very young children on the upper green at sandyford hall, parents of teenagers in the 13 to 16 years bracket, PLEASE TALK TO YOUR CHILDREN ABOUT POSSIBLE ANTISOCIAL CHOICES,

Hi all,

last week we received numerous emails concerning the youth activity in our reason and therefore we decided to publish one of them right here on our website. IF you believe that you could help us tackle this problem, please do come in forward and send us an email. All information will be kept strictly confidential. (To protect the person who sent this letter, we have decided to publish it as anonymous.)


I am a local resident and have been living in Belarmine 18 months now.

Over the past few weeks I’ve noticed a group of 15 – 20 youths aged between 13 – 16 years old that are hanging around outside the shop/plaza and later at night in the playground. On Tuesday 15th June I was in the shop and these youths came in (most of them drunk) and started trouble, giving customers and the staff grief. As I was leaving the store I observed Dennis a member of staff from The Market run out after one of these lads, i looked behind me and seen that this lad had a bottle of wine concealed under his jumper, he ran off and Dennis returned to the shop. Around the corner on the main road in the estate in front of Belarmine Hall these young lads started arguing between themselves and one of them pulled out a nearly empty bottle of white wine from his tracksuit bottoms, he then threatened a younger fella with it and said he would smash it off his face. At this point a woman and I intervened, this woman started shouting at them because there was kids playing there and they eventually they moved on. The same group were outside The Plaza on Wednesday.

I work in the security industry and I fear that these young lads might be coming from different estates because they might think The Market is an easy place to steal alcohol from as there is not much of a staff presence in the off license section nor do they employ a retail security officer.

I just wanted to make you aware of this as I would not like this situation get worse, there should be more of a Garda presence in the estate, after all loitering is a criminal offence, It would be great if we could look at setting up a neighbourhood watch scheme and involve the Gardai, we could talk about any issues residents are having, e.g attempted burglaries that have been happening in the apartment blocks, cars been broken into and damaged etc.. If this carry on is not stamped out our beautiful, quiet estate will be ruined. I would not be surprised if it was this group that damaged the gate in the playground preventing our local children from playing together for weeks.

I would appreciate any feedback and if we could raise awareness to stamp out this drunken loitering/vandalism that is happening in our community.


—————————————————–

The problem is growing every day and i was left stunned by the ignorance of the youth myself at the Market where the store staff had 2 different encounters with the young lads and both of them ended in calling the Guards on the scene. If someone knows how to tackle with the your lads or has any suggestions, please do come in forward: info@belarmineplaza.com.

Yours,

Johnny

fc
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Posts: 2
Date Registered: 09/08/2010
Re: Problems with wall-hoppers
Date: August 25, 2010 06:19PM
Thank you all for your replies, I can see that this is an issue which affects us all equally. With the walkway almost completed I expect that these problems are only going to get worse. If the Gardai can't/won't help, as seems to be the case, then the only way we can tackle this is by making life as hard as possible for these young people. I beleive that the Grianan Fidh Residents association plans on re-installing the coded pedestrian gates (this time without an impossible to remember password) at the bottom end of our estate, which should hopefully stop the wall hopping and force people to use the new walkway and the Village road to access the shops in Bellarmine. I know this will be cold comfort to many of you, as these youths will still be passing through your estate. It may be worth having a security camera installed overlooking the new walkway and again another at the shops in Bellarmine. If the council refuses to do this then perhaps the cameras could be istalled by the Aiken's Village and Bellarmine residents associations.
As our 2 developments are soon to be connected I hope we can put aside our past grievances and work together on issues like this,
Thanks again,
F

Rob
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Posts: 5
Date Registered: 23/06/2009
Re: Problems with wall-hoppers
Date: August 26, 2010 03:41AM
Hi
I have witnessed this anti social behaviour on the back green in Sandyford Hall, younger children are been bullied by these youths age 13-15. I don't recogise these youths from Sandyford Hall but they do hang around with boys in our estate. Every parent with a teenager needs to ask themselves what are their teenagers up to and who are they hanging around with. I don't know the solutation to this problem maybe if anyone can get pictures of these youths and post them on website and in local shops. Is that allowed? I think the Gardai should come down to estate and talk to residents. Is this problem going to get worse once the walkway is finished between our estates?

d18
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Posts: 20
Date Registered: 17/10/2008
Re: Problems with wall-hoppers
Date: August 28, 2010 06:24PM
one mother mentioned at the shops recently that a small number of big lads from fernleigh seem to want to give a hard time or 'more' to some younger lads from sandyford hall, apart from the 'boys will be boys' story maybe these bigger lads might be told to keep it friendly and neighbourly? :-)

OriginalResident
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Posts: 5
Date Registered: 22/09/2010
Re: Problems with wall-hoppers
Date: September 22, 2010 09:08PM
Wow! Just been reading this thread and I notice:

(1) The Leopardstown Hgts residents blame a group from Sandyford Hall for all their problems.
(2) We in Sandyford Hall are beset on several sides with kids from Kilgobbin and even Kilcross gathering here while wall-hoppers from Belermine are also causing problems.
(3) In Belermine it is the wall-hoppers from Sandyford Hall who are throwing the eggs.
(4) And now we have bullies from Fernleigh arriving at the Centra car-park looking for Sandyford Hall youngsters to push around.
(5) And I know that in Fernleigh they blame youths from Sandyford Hall as the main source of their trouble.

Common thread ('scuse pun)?

It is always the bad kids from the OTHER block doing the anti-social stuff! smileys with beer

Rocky
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Posts: 2
Date Registered: 12/09/2008
Re: Problems with wall-hoppers
Date: September 27, 2010 07:22AM
And what would your solution be ? I know I'll write an unfunny bulleted reply to a serious problem where people have genuine fears and concerns.

Why dont you grow up and post something usefull.

If you cant contribute anything meaningful, dont bother !

OriginalResident
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Posts: 5
Date Registered: 22/09/2010
Re: Problems with wall-hoppers
Date: September 27, 2010 07:59AM
You again with the humour bypass! tongue sticking out smiley

Actually I think pointing out the demented tribalism of a cluster of estates all blaming the kids from the OTHER block is providing valuable context to the squabbles we witness here.

A great example of how not to fix anything I'd reckon.

I will contribute how and when I like and will not be taking any guidance from someone whose sole contribution thus far is attacking my sole contributions.



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