A concrete roller has been used to damage safety netting at Bailey’s Court in a series of vandalism incidents, The Bradley Stoke Examiner has learned.
The 11mx7m netting was put up to protect people and cars in the play area and car park but vandals have repeatedly tried to pull it down.
The netting was put up shortly after the Bailey’s Court extension was complete but “as soon as the ropes were put on, they were just as soon pulled down again by those less keen on our good intentions”, a cricket club spokesman told us.
Bradley Stoke Cricket Club then tried to tie the netting half way up the posts but vandals struck again when they tied the ropes to trees and attempted to burn other ropes.
But the most shocking incident saw vandals unhook some the ropes and try to pull the netting down with a concrete roller.
“One morning we found that again someone had climbed up a number of the posts to untie the ropes and this time wanted to pull all the netting down.
“As it seems they had insufficient strength to do this themselves, they tied a number of the ropes to a concrete roller and then pushed this into the middle of the pitch, tearing down a number of the brackets and netting.”
So far, the repairs have cost the club £400 and is “money that [the club] can ill afford and would much rather spend on progress”.
15 responses so far ↓
1 Mike // May 1, 2008 at 6:53 pm
However many times they replace the netting they will just pull it down again.
2 Bert Hindle // May 1, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Maybe some kind of `electrified’ wire-mesh netting is in order?
3 Fred // May 2, 2008 at 9:19 am
I reckon its those Bowlers again, they are always causing trouble at Bailey’s Court. Cutting Chains, abusing staff and generally making life unpleasant for the community.
4 Matt // May 2, 2008 at 10:00 am
I know this sounds like a daft question – but can’t the netting be put up and taken down after each match or something (or designed to do that!).
I know the net is there for all the right reasons – but these small-minded cretinous vandals – don’t understand or listen to logic and will do what they want for as long as they’re allowed & able!
5 Chris (editor) // May 2, 2008 at 10:01 am
Matt – Not wishing to speak for the cricket club, but I think one of the problems they’d said to me with doing that was the amount of time to take it down and put it up.
6 Mark // May 2, 2008 at 10:47 am
Matt, that is now what we have to do.
We were aware that we wouldn’t be able to leave the net up and even that we couldn’t leave the ropes within easy reach.
We fitted some brackets a few meters up and tied the ropes to this hoping that as they were out of easy reach, why would anyone want to climb up a pole to get to a few pieces of rope??
But they did!
Hoisting the netting up and down each match would be fine if the ropes with which to hoist it were left alone. Having to fit the ropes to the top of a pole 6 meters up in the air, on 11 posts, that takes a bit of doing.
Adds a couple of hours to the day putting it all up and taking it all down again. But your right, this will continue and so putting the whole lot away after use is the only answer until someone figures out what’s going on inside these peoples heads.
Its just frustrating that its such mindless behaviour that causes this. Its not as though they even want to steal the rope or the netting. They climb all the way up just to undo it and pull it out of the hooks.
Even more frustrating when we visit other grounds who have similar safety netting which they’re able to leave up permanently year after year.
The netting is there because we want people visiting the area surrounding the cricket ground (especially the play park) to be safe and so we will do whatever it takes to make this work.
It could just all be so much easier to achieve!!
7 Matt // May 2, 2008 at 11:10 am
Mark – I couldn’t agree more with you – and do indeed feel your pain and share you frustration on this! Whilst I make the suggestion about lifting it – the fact that you need to consider it is a sad indictment on some of the kids in Bradley Stoke and their parents!
I’m curious – what have the Police & the PCSO’s said about this? Is this another case for the reinstatement of the Dispersal Order – or would this not solve the problem?
8 Matt // May 2, 2008 at 11:20 am
Mark,
One other thing – as a user of the park myself (well my daughter does anyway!
)- thanks for putting the net up (or trying to!)!!
9 Mark // May 2, 2008 at 11:58 am
Having 3 young children of my own I can’t stand it when I see others ‘at risk’ over there. On the VERY rare occasions I’ve hit the ball that far!!, I have to look away!
So no matter what happens, I’m getting that netting in use somehow.
For this weekend it may only be halfway up, but on Monday we plan to take all the posts down (again!!) and fit yet more and yet stronger brackets. So hopefully after Monday it will be in full use.
(I wonder if these vandals have some sort of commission scheme set up with B&Q!!)
I would still always encourage people when they are near a cricket pitch to keep half an eye on the game.
But I also want to encourage people (other than the vandals) to feel welcome at the cricket ground. Along with Bradley Stoke Town Council who have always supported any improvement work we try to do, we want to help make it a nice area for everyone to make use of, not just for cricket matches.
10 Mark // May 2, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I think for the police this is like most other problems of this type.
1. Knowing who actually committed the act. Unless you see them doing it, even if the group is still there, you couldn’t prove which of them had actually caused the damage.
Though the dispersal order last year was brilliant for preventing large groups gathering and it would be great to see it in place again, a lot of this damage was still done during that period.
Measures can be taken to help with this, more cameras, more residents and visitors to the area having the police number stored in their phones so that they can report this sort of thing as soon as they witness it.
But that brings you onto problem 2 which needs to be dealt with at a much higher level and until people stop going on about the rights of the criminal and worry more about the rights of everyone else, it won’t get sorted out….
2. What happens to these people when they are caught. Do we never see them again??
No, they’re back out doing the same the next night, even more intent on causing trouble because someone was rude enough to complain about them.
They need to know their actions will have SERIOUS consequences. For the police it must be very frustrating catching criminals and then having the same trouble with the same person/people the next night. But not half as frustrating as it is for the residents/victims.
Until these ‘people’ have some level of respect for others instilled in them at home, and there is a criminal system which they fear, I can’t see this problem going away. A big shame because most of the community are great people who want the best for their area and their families so its important we don’t let a very small minority stop us from still trying to do the right things.
Just be nice if the system was geared towards protecting the majority who have good intentions rather than the minority who want to cause trouble.
PS: For anyone thinking I’m getting a bit excited about a bit of netting, its not just about this.
Smashed windows in the buildings, water pipes cut, areas where its obvious children are going to be playing used as a toilet, burning benches and equipment in the play park, even had the childrens slide cut in half with a saw!!
11 SR // May 2, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Guys, I think this is just another case of issues at Baileys court, see the forum for the issues that have been occuing some nights over there. There appears to be a hard core group of around 12-20 kids that seem to cause most of the trouble. So far the police have said they cant do anything in relation to a dispersal order becuase no one rings them to tell them. So please encourage people to call the local police number to raise such issues.
12 Flurfy chicken // May 2, 2008 at 3:19 pm
I agree with the electrified wire mesh idea, should soon stop them vandalising!!
As a lot of people have mobile phones with cameras on these days – how about photographing some of these little darlings and publicly displaying them?
13 SR // May 2, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Good call flurfy..
14 Mike // May 2, 2008 at 10:59 pm
You say they climb up the poles. I know you can buy intruder paint, which is like tar. If it gets on your clothes its very hard to wash out, plus fingerprints remain on it afterwards. This stuff doesn’t cost much, and it lasts for years. Very useful on drain pipes too. If you try and stick it on the pole so far up, during the night they wont notice it and hopefully get tar all over their clothes.
Just worth a thought…
15 Mark // May 7, 2008 at 11:00 am
Thanks to everyone for their support and ideas.
Mike, this paint is used in some areas of the ground such as on top of the storage areas and in areas where it may be possible to climb on top of the building.
We decided against it on the poles for the reason that the netting would also become covered in this paint as it rubbed against the poles and then so would we get covered in it everytime we handled the netting.
New bolts were fitted to the poles on Monday to allow us to more easily hoist the netting up and down each game so hopefully from this coming weekend we’ll finally have a system of being able to reliably use the netting to its full potential whilst being able to completely remove it when its not in use.
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