Anger, fear and frustration on the streets of Kensington
It's a blisteringly hot day on Gilroy Road in Kensington and a middle-aged man is sat basking in the good weather on the wall outside his house.
The air is shimmering in the midday heat, but the bright skies are providing only temporary cover for the darkness that continues to envelop this area of Liverpool.[1] "This is a very troublesome road," the man, who lives on Gilroy with his family, explains.
He gestures to the two properties that flank his terraced house on either side, explaining that both have had their doors broken into in the past few weeks. One was sealed off by police. He wonders if his will be next.
"We don't feel safe. You should feel safe in your home but we don't," he adds, squinting as the sun beats down on his head.
The man, who has understandably asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, says that most nights he is kept awake by gangs gathering in the street, often directly outside his home.
"They make so much noise at night," he adds. "I don't know where they all come from, I don't think they live here. The police used to come but we don't see them anymore. I think there are drugs involved."
He has lived here for two years and says the anti-social behaviour has got worse and reached something of a peak in recent months.
"It makes me want to leave," he says with a resigned expression, "but it's not easy to get a new place."
Kensington is an area of around 15,000 people that lies immediately to the east of Liverpool city centre. Its issues with crime and anti-social behaviour are not new. The key thoroughfare of Sheil Road is now well-established as the centre of the city's red light district.
In 2017 the ECHO ran a series of features[3] raising concerns from local people about the prevalence of crime, drug dealing, sex work and filthy streets in Kensington.
Those residents had formed a campaign group, hoping to have their voices heard and to force through improvements, but six years on, if anything, people feel that things have got worse.
Not far from Gilroy Road, in Butler Crescent there is a very vivid image of the problems that continue to haunt Kensington.
In Butler Crescent, a white metal sheet covers the entire doorway of a ground floor property. On the back gate of the house there is a notice, with the word 'Closed' emblazoned across it in bright red lettering.
Underneath, a message from Merseyside Police reads: "Merseyside Police have obtained a closure order to protect your neighbourhood from the drug use and anti-social behaviour that was taking place in this property."
It is not the first or last such closure order in this area of the city. Another has been carried out locally, while premises in Radstock Road and Waltham Road have now also been served with intention to close notices.
The closure order in Butler Crescent, carried out using powers under Section 80 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act, came after constant reports of criminal activity and disorder linked to the property. Anyone who goes into the house could face six months in prison and a £5,000 fine.
It's a temporary measure that only runs until October, but local residents desperately hope it will have an impact.
"Over the course of a day you would just see a steady procession of people going in and out of that house, it was pretty clear there was drugs involved" explains one Butler Crescent neighbour, who asked not to be named.
"That house was like ground zero for problems in this estate. It took a while and lots of reporting to get the police to take action."
The neighbour, who has spent his entire life in Kensington, said the wider area is virtually unrecognisable to the one he grew up in.
"It's sad to see what has happened to this neighbourhood," he adds as he talks about growing up in a community that had 'everything we needed' but that has severely declined.
Like a number of areas of Liverpool, Kensington suffers with high levels of deprivation. Most of the ward is in the top 5% of the most deprived parts of the country, some areas are in the top 1%.
Housing remains a key issue, approximately 82% of those living in this part of Liverpool are renters, with a high volume of students and a generally more transient community of tenants in properties owned by absentee landlords, undoubtedly a key cause of some of the anti-social issues faced by those who have lived here for some times.
In Romer Road, there are daily problems.
One resident invited us in and showed us pictures and videos of gangs gathering outside his home. He says the attitude of those involved makes life very difficult.
"I basically stayed indoors for two years during covid, then all of a sudden when I came out I could see things had got a lot worse," he explains.
"There are loads of people gathering round, more drugs, more crime, lots of shoplifting in the local shops. Lots of windows in the houses around here have been smashed in."
He regularly sees people urinating in the alley next to his house.
"There seems to be a different attitude now," he explains. "It is like people are just allowed to do whatever they want. I tried to stop a guy from urinating in the entry next to my house and he threatened me. He wasn't embarrassed, he thought I was in the wrong."
Drugs remain a big issue in the area, he adds, "There are people around here who really need help, they have drug addictions. There are people openly injecting themselves on their front steps."
One former Kensington resident, who felt forced to leave, has continued to raise concerns to the authorities as she has a relative living here.
She said her family member recently had to remove drug users from her front step while they were "preparing to smoke crack cocaine or heroin," adding: "As you can imagine they were not to happy and made her aware of this.
"The corner of Hannan Road and Molyneux Road in Kensington has now become the gathering place for drug scoring and sex work," she claims, adding that her relative has 'witnessed sexual activity on numerous occasions."
"It is both frustrating and concerning to see Kensington in a deep state of decline," she adds.
Several of the Kensington residents that we spoke to said they believe there are some specific cultural tensions between different groups in the area.
It is an issue Liverpool Council leader and Kensington ward councillor Liam Robinson is aware of and one that he and others are trying to address.
"There are some private rented houses where eastern European Roma residents are living, that I am regularly reporting issues about. Sometimes it is overcrowding, loud noises, congregating in the street and drinking. Some of these things aren't criminal but we want to build up better relationships."
A closure order in Butler Crescent, one of several in the Kensington area
Cllr Robinson says he is 'acutely' aware of the problems in Kensington as he sees them every day when walking around the ward.
"We are very aware of some of the acute crime issues happening across the area and on a daily basis we are sending intelligence to the police that residents have passed to us.," he explains. "Residents don't want to do that directly for fear of reprisals but we will do things like community impact statements.
"There has been quite a lot of activity, particularly on problem properties like in Butler Crescent. I physically watched what was going on there myself one morning, there was someone coming along to that house every 15 minutes."
"We hope the closure orders will deal with some of these issues and get on top of them. There are a number of other exercises we have been doing in some of the roads of Sheil Road looking at how we can improve street lighting, put up more CCTV and deal with some of the alleyways and hidey holes where drug dealing and sex work is going on. Nobody should have to put up with that on their door step."
On the subject of sex work, the city council says it is working with police to monitor the activity in the area, offer support to those involved but also deter them from anti-social behaviour that is upsetting local people.
Cllr Robinson took over as leader of the city council after May's elections and one of his first major policy objectives is the introduction of a new neighbourhood model, which will see Liverpool divided up into 13 new administrative neighbourhoods, with a senior council officer - or area manager - appointed to oversee the delivery of services in those areas.
"We think our plans for the Neighbourhood Model will be vital for places like Kensington," explains Cllr Robinson. "Putting a senior area manager in place will give us the opportunity to be much more strategic and have someone based in the locality and focussed on these key issues. This includes cracking down on the bad landlords that are responsible for the housing issues.
"I'm not going to patronise people and say this will solve all the problems, it won't. But it will give us a greater focus and the ability to work in a smarter way than we have done before."
Merseyside Police says tackling the issues in Kensington remains a priority. The ward is covered by the force's 'serious violence polygon' which allows local agencies to share information and target interventions to try and prevent crime, such as sourcing CCTV footage from housing associations.
There are also multiple pro-active policing operations taking place in the area, including the serious violence pulse policing, which provides additional officers who 'pulse' into the area on foot patrols to try and deter criminal activity. Funding has been applied for to pay for more CCTV camera, better lighting and improved alleyways.
Officers are also working with BT to have several phone boxes in Kensington removed that have been highlighted as hotspots for anti-social behaviour and criminality. They will be replaced with emergency contact points.
"We understand that the community will be concerned about recent anti-social behaviour in the area," Inspector Kieron Hogan told us.
"We treat all reports of anti-social behaviour seriously, and will investigate these incidents so we can work to make Kensington a safer place to live."
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References
- ^ envelop this area of Liverpool. (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
- ^ Join the Liverpool ECHO's memories and history WhatsApp community (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
- ^ In 2017 the ECHO ran a series of features (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
- ^ Don't miss the biggest and breaking stories by signing up to the Echo Daily newsletter here (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)