A GROWING trend in Redditch is the rise in teenage and child disorder.

When I lived in Coronation Street-style houses in Alum Rock, Birmingham, as a child, we had no green areas, no play areas, no TV and though my father worked hard at the Co-op bakery, little money.

We had no car or any of the normal luxuries such as washing machines, electric irons, fridge freezers etc, things that we all take for granted today.

We played football on the school playground or made our own fun through children's games.

Today in Redditch, there is an abundance of parks and play areas, yet they are little used.

This week alone I have witnessed events carried out by young teenagers, including two minor attacks on buses, one a thrown stone the other a thrown can. Bottles broken and smashed on the road. A bus being forced to drive through a barricade with the result of having large amounts of wood jammed beneath it because the driver was frightened to stop.

He had had two broken windows and £2,000 pounds damage to the bus caused by youths when he tried to move the barricade. He had eggs and stones thrown at him as he drove away.

If you try to talk to these children and reason with them, you suffer verbal insults and have missiles thrown at you.

Three changes to current practice would go a long way to putting right the rise in abusive child behaviour.

Making parents legally responsible for the crimes their children commit.

More liaison with schools, the police and parents to monitor children with a record of persistent disruptive behaviour.

More local policing and bobbies on the beat. Estate sub-stations should become the norm so police can work from an estate-based office and not a more distant central police station.

With these changes in place, the root of the problem would be tackled; that is, 'little or no parental control'.

An effective combination of home, (if the child has parents who really do care), the school and the legal elements would be combined to provide help for the child concerned.

Finally, people living in local communities would build relations with local police officers and be more confident in providing support for them.

I feel the effect would be not only to decrease disruptive forces in the community but also to give an impetus and new heart to those that really do want to see improvements to the living environment for both themselves and their neighbours.

Robin King

Huband Close

Redditch