ELDERLY and disabled Witney residents are fighting to stop drunken people urinating and having sex outside their homes.
The Queen Emma’s Dyke residents said the disorder was getting worse, with one describing it as like “living in the Third World War”.
But the “war” may be coming to an end, as housing managers stepped in.
Cottsway Housing Association, which owns the complex, has installed a new gate to stop people getting into the communal garden.
Last weekend, police also increased the number of PCs on foot patrol on Thursday, Friday and Saturday by telling officers not to patrol in their cars (see also Page 2).
Resident Jonathan Keen, 59, said of the trouble: “They were urinating through our gateways and throwing bits of food through. The whole place stank of urine.
“And there’s a tree outside my bedroom window where people were having sex.”
The problems happened between 2am and 2.30am on Saturdays and Sundays, he said.
Mr Keen, who has mobility problems and battled cancer last year, said: “It was quiet as a grave last weekend, and Cottsway is building a great big, six-foot high gate.
“It is too soon to really judge on it — we need to judge over two or three weeks — but the last weekend was brilliant.”
Christopher Deane, 70, who linked the trouble to a “Third World War”, said: “Last weekend was the first time since I have lived here that the weekend was so quiet.”
He said of previous weekends: “At three o’clock in the morning, there were people fighting, having sex, and peeing and putting half-eaten food through people’s windows. It was getting out of hand, and it was quite frightening for people. People in their 80s and 90s were terrified.”
Cottsway spokesman, Dee Hempstead, said: “We have installed a six feet tall, wooden, lockable gate and fence panels to restrict access to the courtyard of the sheltered scheme. This replaces a three feet metal gate.
“We fitted this following reports from residents of Queen Emma’s Dyke of antisocial behaviour in the evenings, to improve privacy and security.
“We ordered the work to be done prior to the press being involved.”
In a new approach to tackling night-time trouble, police were stationed at four points around the town centre where trouble might occur.
Chief Inspector Colin Paine, area commander for West Oxfordshire, said he was considering moving officers to outside the town centre as people walk home.
He said: “I want to take account of routes home, to take account of situational features — like bus stops — where people might congregate, in order to address anti-social behaviour.”
Cottsway spokesman, Dee Hempstead, said: “Residents of Queen Emma’s Dyke made us aware last month of the problem of antisocial behaviour near the sheltered housing scheme.
“We have consulted them to discuss the problems, and are working together to resolve the situation.”
l On Monday, the Gazette’s sister paper, the Oxford Mail, reported that crimes in West Oxfordshire were the least likely in the county to be solved in the 12 months to April 2011.
Only 17.74 per cent of crimes were solved, compared to the Oxfordshire average of 24.17 per cent.
But the district is still the safest place in the county to live, with 4,499 crimes reported between April 2010 and March 2011. This compares to 18,095 crimes in Oxford.
Chief Inspector Paine said detections had been up to 25 per cent in April and May.
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