SIR: I can well understand that, especially to elderly folk, kids playing noisily in the streets can become intolerably irritating (Viewpoint, May 18). However it is stretching things more than a bit to say that the noise constitutes any kind of risk to health or safety. In any event, the Health and Safety Act only really covers conditions in the workplace, and could not, therefore, be used.
It is equally impracticable to suggest that the Conditions of Tenancy should, or even could, be used to suppress this unwelcome activity. To begin with, we have no evidence that all or any of the children involved are the offspring of local authority tenants. Even if they were, the only sanction the council has against failure to abide by the conditions of tenancy is to seek an end to the tenancy in the courts. It is extremely unlikely that any court would deprive any tenant of their home for so venial a sin as allowing one's kids to play football in the streets, nor should they. It would be a punishment out of all proportion to the crime. And even the police, hard pressed as they often are these days, usually have more serious matters to attend to. I've got considerable sympathies with the people who get driven round the bend by all the noise, but I'm sorry to say there isn't a lot that can be done about it.
Cllr Peter D Johnston
8 Kendal Road, Bolton
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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