Youths ‘targeting Bury flats with missiles’ anger residents

Ian Ward, 72, a resident of Elton House on Elton Vale Road, has said a group of young men have repeatedly targeted the building.

He explained that the issue has been going on for three weeks and has continued, causing him great distress in the night, as the youths show up at around 9pm.

Mr Ward, said: “I feel very annoyed, frustrated and a sad sense of inevitability that this will happen again unless something is done about it.

“There’s also some frustration with myself and some of the other residents that there are young people out there who would do something like this with no thought for other people.

“This could happen to anyone and if no one does something, it’s going to continue.

“There is a young single parent who also lives here and who has suffered, so I’d very much like to speak to whoever is doing this and ask them how they would feel if it were happening to one of their parents or grandparents.

“I’m assuming whoever is doing this is not targeting anyone specifically because mine and several other people’s windows have had mud flung at them. So I dread to think what possesses someone to indiscriminately taunt and try to intimidate other people in this way.”

Jeannette Thompson, head office manager of Howards, which maintains Elton House, said: “We understand this has been going on for a long time now, and we’d be very keen to put some cameras in place. There has been an ongoing issue recently with youngsters engaging in this kind of behaviour and it’s frustrating because almost everyone has experienced it at this point.

“It sadly seems to be part of a new trend, wherein young people start doing things like this, or egging houses, or ringing on random doorbells, where they think it is cool to cause a nuisance.

“We know that this has been an ongoing issue between Christmas and New Year and we want to address the issues. Our management team will be having meetings as to what can be done to put a stop to this.”