Popped up to see an old mate on Moorgate on Saturday. He and other residents are thrilled to have the new Lifeline Centre for drugs and alcohol rehabilitation. He tells me that Saturday mornings they get quite a lively crowd sitting on his wall. Right on cue a couple of dozen of Rotherham's finest emerged, posed with a banner for photographs and boarded several white mini-buses for a well-deserved day out. Another winner from RMBC.
I realised when I posted this it would lay me open to accusations of Nimby heartlessness and there may well be some truth in this. I have, however, some experience of these places and the pattern is always the same. The impact falls entirely on local residents and the Council and operators simply wash their hands of any responsibility. The visitors/patients exercise little or no self-control and the operators/staff fail to exercise any. So we have all too typically the scenario at Moorgate where some woman looking the worse for wear staggered out and shouted loudly to another approaching woman; "Get up here you sexy b*stard." Other inmates thought this was the height of humour and the woman sat on the wall having a fag who is apparently one of the staff completely ignored it. Residents and passing shoppers simply have to put up with it.
