TEARAWAYS TERRORISE ELDERLY

Vandals are targeting College Road on the Penland Wood estate, which is made up mainly of bungalows, favoured by the elderly or frail.

Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator, Harry Hillman, said youngsters on bikes, skateboards, or walking through the estate to and from the Ravenside retail centre, are wrecking the carefully tended front gardens.

Plants are being trampled down or uprooted and litter tossed into flowerbeds.

In the last two weeks three dry-stone walls have been destroyed and a firework was thrown through a letterbox. The explosion blew the letterbox off the front door.

The elderly residents say they are too afraid to tackle the teenagers for fear of reprisals.

Some have been threatened that the culprits will return and wreak vengeance.

Mr Hillman, who has lived in College Road 19 years, said: The low dry-stone wall in my garden was knocked down two weeks ago and the bricks scattered all over the pavement.

Two other bungalows in the road were targeted the same evening and their low walls also wrecked.

One resident has only lived on the estate six months and the other only three months. It gives newcomers an awful impression of Penland Wood.