There’s calls for a popular hangout spot in Kilkenny city to be demolished due to antisocial behaviour.
Councillor Joe Malone says he’s heard many complaints from residents in Loughboy about trouble in the disused community centre there.
He says teenagers are congregating at the abandoned site in Hazel Grove, disturbing residents and littering the area.
This month’s meeting of Kilkenny City Municipal District saw the local authority suggest that new housing units be built to replace the derelict building.
But Councillor Malone says anything that’s built in its place will only see more trouble caused:
“I think no matter what they build there, it’s going to be involved in antisocial behaviour, so I would be proposing that they would knock it, because that’s the wishes of the residents up there and I would support them on that. There’s been ongoing antisocial behaviour up there over the last good while, and I’ve asked the Gardaí to keep in regular contact and do patrols up there as well, particularly at weekends and in the night time.”
The Fianna Fail councillor says elderly residents are feeling especially threatened by the activity in their neighbourhood;
“Young people are apparently coming from other areas of the town, you know, they’re only children- fourteen or fifteen year olds, teenagers” he told KCLR News. “They’re congregating, boys and girls, and they’re coming there and causing a nuisance for the neighbours. A lot of the neighbours up there are elderly, they’re living on their own and they just don’t need that hassle.”
Councillor Malone is now fearful that such behaviour will get worse as we approach Halloween; “Coming up to Halloween now in the next couple of weeks, we’ll have fireworks displays and all that. If [the teenagers] are into that, then they’re frightening older people, and animals as well- dogs and cats and that kind of thing. We don’t need that. So I’d be appealing to young people, and their parents, that they’d keep the young people under control.”
