Flats fire nuisance dealt with

The area around Niddrie House Park has recently been plagued by youngsters setting fire to wheelie bins – an obvious concern to both local residents and the Council.

Wheelie bins are expensive and replacing them at around £75 each is money that could otherwise be used to improve life on the estate.

Residents were concerned for their health and safety from the smoke and fumes as well as the obvious disturbance and fears that the fire could spread into stairwells.

The Community Safety Team has been working effectively with local residents to crack down on the problem.

“First we spoke to residents and were able to get approximate times that these incidents were occurring,” said community safety officer David MacAdam.

“We worked with the CCTV team to direct cameras onto the area at the time that these incidents were happening. We could then see on camera the problems that the neighbourhood were dealing with and successfully collected good quality photographic images.”

At the same time, alerted by the community safety teams reports, the Police and community safety concierge both increased patrols in the area and collected names of youths who they found hanging around in common stairs in the area.

They then had letters sent to their parents from the Council’s Community Safety Team informing them of the problems and asking that they keep their children away at these times.

“We were pleased to find that parents were co-operative with us in our aims and spoke to their children, encouraging them not to be there in the evenings,” said David.

Statements were also collected from local residents to submit to the police along with legal quality camera footage.

“With the evidence, Police were able to initiate enquiries with a view to taking the culprits to court,” said David. “The Police tell us that they have now taken action against those identified in the film.

“This has therefore proved once again the value of partnership working to the local community.”