Alicia

Ted Max Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > See you later Alicia. Don't hurry back. > > (or is it really Snorky in disguise?) Go ahead and wait till it's a fait accompli then. Don't let seriously bad news get in the way of your liberal leanings. The famous needle exchange was just a rumour, I can assure you that this is true. But go ahead, wait till the Summer!

You're worried about The White Stuff and Jojo Maman Bebe coming to East Dulwich - perhaps this information may help you with your perspective? I'm not an expert on this, so bear with me if I get some of the details wrong - but this is how it was explained to me by someone who works for Southwark council.. The probation service work with adults - people released early from prison on license (liable to recall to prison or a further court appearance if they fail to keep to their license conditions), or supervising people sentenced to community sentences, or preparing reports on people before they are sentenced in court.They have committed any and all crimes. You may not know (or care up until now) that there is an equivalent organisation working with teenagers up to 18 that is called the youth offending team. At the moment the youth offending team is based in one of the estates on the Walworth Road that is scheduled for demolition, the residents will be rehoused, but what about the youth offending team? The youth offending team is being moved to East Dulwich - to east Dulwich Road, next to the swimming pool - by summer 2008. Fair enough you may think, they have to be somewhere. But - these youths are going to the youth offending team's offices because they are drug dealers, rapists, involved with gangs (violent street gangs that deal drugs and are involved in organised criminal activities, where the members regularly carry knives and have access to guns), involved in street robbery, arrested for carrying guns - and all of the other crimes that you can imagine; apparently, some of the crimes you would not be able to imagine. You're probably thinking - in some misguided wishy washy, liberal and egalitarian way that these are underpriveleged kids who have been treated badly by society and that they have to go somewhere. Maybe they are, maybe they have been and maybe they do - but I've been told that some of them are also very dangerous and very aggressive - and in six months time you will be able to meet them on Lordship Lane and make your own mind up. Lots of criminal activity is opportunistic - how safe are you going to feel in the newly refurbished park with these people hanging around? I know how I will feel with my little girls when we go swimming or to the swings - which is why I am glad I am moving. And you thought that Foxtons were a big deal. My house is under offer and we will be moving out of London as soon as we have sold - don't say that you weren't told about this in advance. I would be very worried about the safety of my children and for myself come to that if I were still going to be around.