Chiodo alluded to William Golding’s novel about marooned children turning to savagery, recently dramatised by the BBC, and said the poor behaviour began in February.
“We’re talking in excess of 20 youths at a time coming on, bringing weapons such as golf clubs, which we have footage of, to smash up whatever they could find basically, turning the street into a Lord of the Flies-type scenario.”
He said people were “just sort of marauding around with impunity [with] nothing and no-one to stop them”.
Chiodo said the remaining residents had spoken to the council “many, many times” since mid-February but “their response has been pretty mediocre”.
“They’re claiming that they’ve secured the street sufficiently. Obviously they haven’t because these break-ins… keep occurring.
“The police are resource-constrained, so they can’t always come every time.”
He said the remaining residents had asked the council to put in a permanent “uniform presence on the street”.
“This is a £100m project and they’re not willing to spend the money to secure the estate in the time between now and when development starts,” said Chiodo.
