Page 10 - Phonebox Magazine October 2012

Readers Letters
Group. When I next inquired I was told that the Action Group had brought the problem to the attention of the police, but apparently done nothing else.
Dear Sir,
At the foot of Silver Lane where it meets Palmers Road stands the site of the old Quaker burial ground which an imaginative council has converted into a leafy refuge known as the Ann Hopkins Smith memorial gardens.
For those who havenʼt heard of her, Mrs Hopkins Smith was in her day Olneyʼs foremost philanthropist, having built with her own money twelve almshouses and a school for poor children in Weston Road. The garden is small, but charmingly designed with four wooden seats in two separate areas surrounded by bushes and separated by a pergola with roses and climbing plants. Elderly people use it for a rest on their way to the market, others as a pleasant place to eat their lunchtime sandwich. But for some time now both have ceased to be an attractive proposition.
Nowadays, the garden is used mostly by children as a place to eat, drink and smoke. The drink is all too often alcoholic and the smoke all too often cannabis, or ʻweedʼ as it is known to their generation. Thus far, they are harming only themselves. The problem lies in the fact that, despite the existence of two ample waste bins, the ground is littered with discarded fish and chip containers, bottles and other litter.
I wrote to the town council in May drawing attention to the problem and the garden was promptly tidied up. Within a few days it had returned to its former state. When I pointed this out to the council they told me that they were treating it as an anti-social behaviour problem to be addressed by the Neighbourhood Action
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I too had written to the police about the under age drinking and drug abuse (which are their areas of concern) and had the opportunity to explain my concerns to a sympathetic inspector and a community support officer who are no doubt following up on these issues. But the litter problem remains.
Letter to the editor
I fully support the points brought up by the lady who came off her bike as a result of being forced onto the cobbles outside “The Arch” in West Street. I live nearby and cars frequently try to force me onto those cobbles. I have learnt the hard way not to allow this to happen. The cobbles are an unnecessary hazard. Their purpose was to keep traffic away from the arch, it being access to a development of seven houses. However as the road narrows there, cars mostly have to drive over the cobbles.
We should not get this out of proportion. Children are children and it takes time to grow up into responsible citizens. Nevertheless, all too little seems to be being done to maintain this quiet area for its intended purpose. The police pointed out to me that there is a sign outside the garden warning that it, along with the rest of the town, is a drinking control area. I confess that I had not noticed the small sign; perhaps it should be more prominently displayed. But there is something else which could be done.
The developers illegally demolished the original arch when construction of the houses was underway. The rebuilt arch neither looks nor is historic.
A step which proved remarkably successful in protecting the townʼs war memorial was the erection of notices explaining to young people why it needs to be treated respectfully. I would like to see similar notices in the garden stating that it is a memorial to and the grave of one of Olneyʼs greatest benefactors and asking those who go there to use the bins for their litter instead of dropping it on the ground.
It should be removed and a properly recessed access constructed. The vehicles will exit safely, and delivery and removal vans will not have to try and park in that very narrow and hazardous part of West Street.
Yours faithfully
Brian Harris
(Author of The Calm Retreat: A Short History of Olney)
Sheila Hargreaves
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10 Phonebox Magazine