I was getting a bit fed up with kids vandalising garden fences in our
area, and the attitude of the police, and then I noticed that the Home
Office were asking for people's views on crime for their Strategic Plan.
Spurred on by recent media reports that vandalism and graffiti are the
two crimes that people are most worried about (damn right!) I wrote to
them, telling them to take it more seriously. After a few days I
received a reply saying "The matters you have raised are the
responsibility of Office of the Deputy Prime Minister". Fair enough - I
always thought crime was a Home Office matter, but I saw the way
Prescott punched that guy who threw an egg at him, so he should be able
to make mincemeat out of the little sh*ts round our place. They said
they'd passed my letter on, so I left it at that. Anyway, a few days
later I received another reply, and this one's just taking the mickey
"The matters you have raised are the responsibility of Food & Rural
Affairs". What??? I certainly don't grow any food in my garden, and it
isn't exactly rural either! I think I'm starting to understand where the
police get their "not our problem" attitude from. At this rate, by next
week my garden will be the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence, in
which case I'll just declare it a Prohibited Place and put barbed wire
up - problem solved :-)

"Ben" wrote
I was getting a bit fed up with kids vandalising garden fences in our
area, and the attitude of the police, and then I noticed that the Home
Office were asking for people's views on crime for their Strategic Plan.
Spurred on by recent media reports that vandalism and graffiti are the
two crimes that people are most worried about (damn right!) I wrote to
them, telling them to take it more seriously. After a few days I
received a reply saying "The matters you have raised are the
responsibility of Office of the Deputy Prime Minister". Fair enough - I
always thought crime was a Home Office matter, but I saw the way
Prescott punched that guy who threw an egg at him, so he should be able
to make mincemeat out of the little sh*ts round our place. They said
they'd passed my letter on, so I left it at that. Anyway, a few days
later I received another reply, and this one's just taking the mickey
"The matters you have raised are the responsibility of Food & Rural
Affairs". What??? I certainly don't grow any food in my garden, and it
isn't exactly rural either! I think I'm starting to understand where the
police get their "not our problem" attitude from. At this rate, by next
week my garden will be the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence, in
which case I'll just declare it a Prohibited Place and put barbed wire
up - problem solved :-)

Similar problem when I complained last year about the treatment, actually a
total lack of care, one of Sues relatives received whilst in Hospital.
Wrote to the Minister for Health because I had lost all faith in the
hospital and it's lack of any management, lots of administrators though.
The Hospitals "Complaints Dept" had already lied to, and mislead us, on more
than one occasion.
All I got was a " complaints are not our job, use the procedure and complain
to the hospital" letter, so we go round in circles. They weren't even
interested in proof that the hospital in question was not logging
complaints.
Wonder what would have happened if I had praised the Hospital? :-)
--
Regards
Bob
in Runnymede, 17miles west of London, UK

reference the two letters.

I have discovered that you have to put a 'sting in the tail' of a letter of
complaint.

Example. My road is only 140 metres long and terminates with a pedestrian
underpass under the railway line. Time and time again, the Gas Board would
come and dig the road up because the Gas pipe, which was very old, kept on
leaking. "Why don't you put a new gas main in?" I asked. 'No money', "But
you spend hours trying to find these leaks", 'That is because the pipe is
wrapped in hessian and the leak travels along and comes out somewhere else,
it even gets into the drains'

"IT EVEN GETS INTO THE DRAINS"!!!!

Letter to Gas Board re old gas pipe, their fitter reported that gas gets
into the drains. Pedestrian underpass with drains in it and an electric
train conductor rail 7 ft above!1 Disaster waiting to happen?????

Your faithfully

Copied to the Rail Company

Within 10 days the road was up and we had a new gas Main in :-))

Another

The Council wanted to sell off some land for housing. The area has a water
flooding problem due to small sewers. Present houses flood. (4 times to
above skirting board level in 16 years)

"Dear Council. May I draw your attention to the inadequate sewer system
whereby houses flood with excessive rain. Should you see fit to grant
planning permission for this land for housing, thereby adding to the present
problems, this letter, copied to the houses at present concerned, will be
proof of you negligence and will make a claim against you when next flooded.

Yours etc

Copied to Numbers etc etc etc

Planning permission refused and land not sold

You must have a sting in the tail whereby they will think twice. Could give
lots of examples.

Hope that helps. Think how their actions, or NONE actions, can hurt them.

Mike

Ben wrote in message
...
I was getting a bit fed up with kids vandalising garden fences in our
area, and the attitude of the police, and then I noticed that the Home
Office were asking for people's views on crime for their Strategic Plan.
Spurred on by recent media reports that vandalism and graffiti are the
two crimes that people are most worried about (damn right!) I wrote to
them, telling them to take it more seriously. After a few days I
received a reply saying "The matters you have raised are the
responsibility of Office of the Deputy Prime Minister". Fair enough - I
always thought crime was a Home Office matter, but I saw the way
Prescott punched that guy who threw an egg at him, so he should be able
to make mincemeat out of the little sh*ts round our place. They said
they'd passed my letter on, so I left it at that. Anyway, a few days
later I received another reply, and this one's just taking the mickey
"The matters you have raised are the responsibility of Food & Rural
Affairs". What??? I certainly don't grow any food in my garden, and it
isn't exactly rural either! I think I'm starting to understand where the
police get their "not our problem" attitude from. At this rate, by next
week my garden will be the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence, in
which case I'll just declare it a Prohibited Place and put barbed wire
up - problem solved :-)

Hi Ben,

Maybe it's worth talking to your neighbours and finding out how wide-spread
this problem is. I am the Neighbourhood Watch Coordinator for our road and,
when we had these problems - and worse - we all stood together. I arranged
a police meeting in my home and the result was an Anti-Social Behaviour
Order (ASBO) on the hooligans involved. We still have occasional problems,
but we continue to have police support - and the two-legged rats know it.
If they forget, we remind them )) !

If you do approach the Police, you will need to make contact with your local
Beat Officer.
Hope things improve for you.
Spider

Spider wrote:
Maybe it's worth talking to your neighbours and finding out how wide-spread
this problem is. I am the Neighbourhood Watch Coordinator for our road and,
when we had these problems - and worse - we all stood together. I arranged
a police meeting in my home and the result was an Anti-Social Behaviour
Order (ASBO) on the hooligans involved. We still have occasional problems,
but we continue to have police support - and the two-legged rats know it.
If they forget, we remind them )) !

If you do approach the Police, you will need to make contact with your local
Beat Officer.

Thanks for the advice. Part of the problem is actually indifference from
the neighbours, so I can't exactly see us standing together. One of my
neighbours is the Parish Council and trying to get them to fix their
fence after its been vandalised I have to wait for the next monthly
meeting then go and put my case to a panel of 10 councillors, then wait
another month and go back to see if they've decided to do anything, etc
- not the best of neighbours. Another neighbour is the church. The
people who rent the house from them seem to have no intention of getting
their fence fixed, or even stopping it being vandalised further, and
they wouldn't even tell me who the owner was. In the end I found out who
the owner was from HM Land Registry and wrote them a letter telling them
their fence had been vandalised and asking them to fix it, I'm still
waiting for a reply. The local council aren't much better, when I
reported graffiti to them they turned up and removed some of it but left
the rest. Given that the police seem to think its our problem, not
theirs, I don't see any hope of an antisocial behaviour order, although
I will definitely take up your suggestion of contacting our local beat
officer. Even though we've called the police quite a lot lately, we
still haven't seen the guy in our area yet. Reporting incidents to a
single point of contact will at least mean that someone in the police
gets a feel for the scale of the problem, which they don't seem to have
at the moment.

Ben wrote in message
...
Spider wrote:
Maybe it's worth talking to your neighbours and finding out how
wide-spread
this problem is. I am the Neighbourhood Watch Coordinator for our road
and,
when we had these problems - and worse - we all stood together. I
arranged
a police meeting in my home and the result was an Anti-Social Behaviour
Order (ASBO) on the hooligans involved. We still have occasional
problems,
but we continue to have police support - and the two-legged rats know
it.
If they forget, we remind them )) !

If you do approach the Police, you will need to make contact with your
local
Beat Officer.

Thanks for the advice. Part of the problem is actually indifference from
the neighbours, so I can't exactly see us standing together. One of my
neighbours is the Parish Council and trying to get them to fix their
fence after its been vandalised I have to wait for the next monthly
meeting then go and put my case to a panel of 10 councillors, then wait
another month and go back to see if they've decided to do anything, etc
- not the best of neighbours. Another neighbour is the church. The
people who rent the house from them seem to have no intention of getting
their fence fixed, or even stopping it being vandalised further, and
they wouldn't even tell me who the owner was. In the end I found out who
the owner was from HM Land Registry and wrote them a letter telling them
their fence had been vandalised and asking them to fix it, I'm still
waiting for a reply. The local council aren't much better, when I
reported graffiti to them they turned up and removed some of it but left
the rest. Given that the police seem to think its our problem, not
theirs, I don't see any hope of an antisocial behaviour order, although
I will definitely take up your suggestion of contacting our local beat
officer. Even though we've called the police quite a lot lately, we
still haven't seen the guy in our area yet. Reporting incidents to a
single point of contact will at least mean that someone in the police
gets a feel for the scale of the problem, which they don't seem to have
at the moment.

Hi Ben,
You really have my sympathy - what a soul-destroying situation.
It is certainly true, as you say, that having one dedicated contact will
build a much clearer picture of the problem. Keeping a diary (with photo
proof, if possible), will also help your case and show just how seriously
you take it. It's a pity that your two council bodies don't have a bit more
civic pride between them. Do you have no other immediate private residents
whom you could stir out of their apathy? You make me feel so lucky to have
such a good bunch of neighbours!
(Life is not entirely a bed of roses, however - our next door neighbour
(No.13!) is a drummer .. I'm working hard to keep open channels of
friendly communication, but there is some underlying tension!)
Here in London (we're in L.B. Southwark), the Met Police and the council are
in close association. This may not be the case where you live, but if it
is, your local Beat Officer may be able to put some pressure on the council.
So may you, of course, by chasing your complaint daily. This * really*
helps. Councils give priority to people who are prepared to prioritise
their own case. I discovered this with my own council after waiting for
adequate street lighting. I finally asked the council contact what their
official policy was when dealing with such complaints. The chap admitted
that their policy amounted to "those who moan most, get most" ..
unofficially speaking! I had done just that; I showed them no mercy ..
took no prisoners. Show them you mean business - don't wait for their next
meeting, but badger them to glory. Tell them you're working with your Beat
Officer and keeping that all-important diary.

Yes, I know, it sounds like a lot of grief and hard work. Eventually,
though, you should get somewhere. In the meantime, you will feel more in
control, more positive. Actions speak louder than words - the two together
make powerful stuff!
I shall keep my fingers crossed for you.
Regards,
Spider