The Aldbourne Net

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"Save our Seat" say Aldbourne villagers

Villagers in Aldbourne are campaigning to stop the parish council moving a memorial bench in a bid to dissuade noisy teenagers gathering there until the early hours.

Councillors are concerned that young people who gather by the bench in The Square are also using the adjacent phone kiosk to make drugs deals and they want the bench moved to The Green.

However, Sgt. Vince Logue said police were making reports of anti-social behaviour in The Square a priority, laying on extra night patrols, but said there was no evidence of any drug dealing taking place.

Council chairman Chris McGowan said: “Nobody wants to move the seat but it’s almost out of desperation, what else can we do about youths sitting there and causing trouble?”

Commenting on the drugs allegation he said: “It’s what the council has been told.”

Former parish council chairman Chris Humphries and his wife Fran, who own the neighbouring property used as a therapy centre, have offered to pay for the seat to be moved or for a new one on The Green with the memorial plaque on.

Old photographs show there has been a bench in the same place in The Square since the 1930s, said retired grocer Wally Palmer who has lived in the village all his life and wants it kept. “I am 83 and there has always been a seat there and I don’t see why it should moved,” he said.

A plaque on the present bench states it was provided by the family of RAF navigator Flight Lieutenant Kingsley Nugent, 22, who was taking part in Operation Market Garden – the huge Allied task force to drop thousands of paratroops in Europe – when his plane was shot down on November 26 1944.

The minutes of the January meeting of the Parish Council state: “There was concern that the telephone box was being used for drugs transactions rather than its correct purpose. BT will be asked what usage if any there was of this telephone with a view to having it removed.”

People who say their sleep has been disturbed by the youngsters complained to the Parish Council, which has decided the move the bench.

One nearby resident said: “I would not call them yobs, they are young people whose parents probably don’t realise what they are doing because they are often there until the early hours of the morning shouting and making a noise.”

But some of the older villagers are demanding that instead of taking away the bench the council works with the police to get the problem of the noisy teenagers solved.

Mike Hillas, 77, who has lived in the village for 22 years, said he was thinking of calling a public meeting and asking councillors to justify their decision.

“Nearly all the long-standing residents of the village are up in arms about this and cannot understand why a poor innocent seat should be moved because the antics of young people cannot be controlled.”

Source: This is Wiltshire - Nigel Kerton

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