Through the Children’s Express scheme, young journalists have talked to children on Britain’s city council estates and discovered that life for many is shockingly brutal. Last year it presented evidence to the Government’s Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) of life on city housing estates from a children’s perspective. Their findings are revealed in this special commission for PSLG (Public Service & Local Government).
Moira Wallace, Head of the Social Exclusion Unit, commented: “Too often policies that affect children are invented without anyone ever asking them. This was a great chance for us to hear what young people have to say about where they live and what they want for the future.”
CE editors and reporters aged between 10 and 15 talked to children living on various housing estates and uncovered some shocking insights into their lives. Their names have been altered in all but the Cowgate, Newcastle case study.
Marsh Farm, Luton
Marsh Farm in the Leagrave area of Luton was troubled by large scale riots in the summer of 1995 and continues to experience difficulties. Last year alone, vandalism generated over 250 repair jobs.
Children’s Express talked to three young residents - Gemma, 14, Eugene, 12, and Mark, 10. They discovered a troubling picture of what life is like on Marsh Farm. After the interview, CE editor Caroline Abomeli, 15, remarked, “This is the worst drama I’ve ever heard. It’s like something on the Jerry Springer Show. These kids don’t care about anything because they’ve been on the estate all their lives so they don’t know any different.”
The children interviewed describe the tangle of their lives. Families are fragmented and fear colours everyday life. Gemma said: “Mark’s mum was going out with Eugene’s dad and they split up. My mum had a boyfriend who kicked her out. My dad trashed my old house so we can’t go back there. My little sister was taken away. We don’t know where my brother and other sister are.
“I don’t like my dad. He gets drunk all the time and he used to hit me and my mum. My sister was sick and he pulled me up on the wall and my nose started bleeding.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot to divert them. Only a “little baby park with little swings” and a quiet youth club, but you have to pay £2.50 to get in. Eugene commented, “It’s just boring on Marsh Farm. The kids don’t get enough attention. They look sad.”
Drugs feature in all the children’s experiences. Eugene said, “You see people on the stairs skinning up. I’ve smoked but I haven’t taken drugs.” Gemma said, “I’ve been offered drugs as in ‘have a pull’. My mum’s boyfriend does pot. I’ve seen him skin up, but I wouldn’t say he’s addicted. I’ve seen people dealing.” “I’ve seen Daniel and Mike take drugs,” added Mark, “And they’re seven and eight. I think it’s worse for younger people to take drugs than older people.”
“I know Marsh Farm’s bad,” concluded Gemma, “But I still want to live here. I don’t want to move away because all my friends and everything are here. A posh house with a swimming pool would be good, but I don’t think I’d have as many friends because I’m not posh.”
New River Green, London
When the New River Green Estate (previously the Marquess Estate), was built in 1967, the Evening Standard called it a housing revolution. Architect John Darbourne said he wanted residents to “only be conscious of atmosphere”. Gang fights and the fear they engender was not what he had in mind. One teenager who lives on the edge of the estate thirty years on told Children’s Express what it has become.
“My family’s been on the council’s waiting list to get out of Marquess since we moved in seven years ago. Anywhere is better than where we live now. It’s alright living on my bit. It’s not posh, but it’s very nice. You go into the maisonettes and there’s gardens. But just round the corner it stinks, it looks horrible, it’s a rat hole.
“The Marquess Estate became the New River Green Estate in April. The council are stupid because they think that by changing the name they’re gonna make things better. But it doesn’t stop the kids from being drunk always with a bottle of Hooch or Holsten Pils, smashing windows and taking bits of my fence away to go and beat the hell out of each other. Or setting fire to building materials and leaving them blazing until they begin to burn the side of the flats. There are still beer cans and empty packets on your garden in the mornings.
“My area is like the headquarters and all the other estates around Islington are branches spreading out from here. It seems like the council has put all the troublemakers in one spot and they gang up together. Parents let their kids roam the streets all hours.
“I went to primary school with these boys. They were so sweet. They did their work and they were bright. When they got mixed up with the gangs they changed instantly. I saw them beating up this guy with a piece of wood courtesy of my fence and I couldn’t believe it.
I want to leave the Marquess area because I want to be able to say to my friends, ‘Why don’t you come to my house?’ I can’t because I don’t have a garden fence, I don’t have a full set of windows, I don’t have nice pavements. I can’t invite people to my house because if they leave at ten o’clock at night, I might not see them again. What I like about other people’s lives is that they don’t live on the Marquess.”
Cowgate, Newcastle
On the Cowgate estate in Newcastle’s West End, 69 per cent of children live in single parent households, of which 91 per cent are dependent on state benefits. “There is nothing to do”, says Phillip Ritzema, 13. Amanda Shields, 12, says, “I just hang around in the streets because there’s nowhere else to go.” Another young resident admits there was a park - “but it got wrecked”. Hence the appeal of ‘the quarry’, a local scrubby field, for Emma Sager, 9, because “there’s more space and there’s more kids go there”.
Relations between young people on the estate and the police are a sore point. Maxine Tolson, 14, and Tony Nichol, 12, describe the situation as “terrible” and asked, “Why do the police encourage us to disrespect them by swearing at us?”. Sonia McAthey, 9, suggests “they check anyone”, regardless of reasonable suspicion, so it’s no surprise that some young people feel it’s unfair that complaints can only be directed to the Inspector at the police station in Gosforth, two miles away.
Stephen Boyle, 12, comments, “I sometimes don’t like Cowgate because people burgle your houses and steal all of your nice things.” But most young people on the estate shrug off its more unpleasant features. David Collinson, 10, simply says, “I think Cowgate’s a bit rough, but it’s a laugh sometimes,” while Gemma Burr, 14, says, “When there’s loads of people about it can be a frisk (a laugh), but it can be boring.” And Emma speaks for most when she says, “If I moved, I would miss my friends.”
Earlier in the year, Cowgate and surrounding areas were awarded Education Action Zone status, but the young people who live there have a more modest wish-list to improve their lives. Nikki Huntington, 8, would like “the older kids to have something to play on while the little ones can play by themselves” so that all kids can play and no-one get bullied. John Boyle, 11, would like “bins on the street so kids can put in their rubbish”. John Quinn, 11, would like some goal posts. One child even said, “We’ll make a park ourselves as long as we get all the stuff to do it.”
Ring Cross, Islington
“Ring Cross is a colourful estate,” says Gary, a 12-year-old who has spent all his life there. “It’s not colourful as in all ‘nice and colourful’,” he says, “But colourful as in vandalised. The flats are painted with people’s tags. The kids go round beating people up for fun. All we ever do is kick a ball around. Walk around. It’s rubbish. It’s a rough estate.”
Mike, Gary’s 11-year-old neighbour, agrees: “It’s disgusting. It’s dirty, there are needles and rubbish and joints everywhere. There are kids everywhere, horrible kids walking around, smoking and drinking, running on the roof. They say there are over 8,000 rats under our flats.”
Things weren’t always this way. Gary says, “When I was younger, all the adults would be talking on the balcony and all the kids used to go into one house or play on the balcony too. The gangs were little little boys and they walked around going, ‘Oi! You! Then people would look at them and they’d run. Now it gets worse every day. They’ve got knives and belts.”
The gangs target boys like Mike and Gary in lieu of anything better to do. “They treat us like rubbish,” complains Gary. “They do it more in the summer and whenever we have holidays. I got beaten up once because they were drunk and had nothing to do. I went to hospital with lumps all over my face and all inside the bottom of my lip. The bottom of my lip was fractured all along it. My brother has had concussion from them, a lady was raped not that long ago and a man got a bottle smashed in his face.”
According to Mike, even those kids who escape a beating are adversely affected by the gangs’ activities. He says, “My cousin is 12 and she’s scared about sleeping because she worries that things will happen to her while she is asleep. When the gangs were running on the roof drunk, she went ballistic, had a fit, almost went mad, shouting and crying.”
Gary believes there are numerous ways to improve life for everyone on estates such as Ring Cross. He suggests that, “Kids under 14 should be in by 7 o’clock because it keeps them off the street, out of trouble and makes them spend more time with their parents. The parents should get them in and if they don’t do it they should get a fine when the police pick them up.” He favours giving the police back their powers “because they can’t do nothing now”, and shrugs, “Kids are kids and they’re going to make a bit of trouble. They shouldn’t put as many on the estate. It’s pretty obvious what’s going to happen.” Mike simply concludes, “I’d like the same life but in a different area."
About the team
Investigations on Cowgate led by CE editors Hayley Sager, 14, Amy Wood, 15, and Steven Boyle, 14, in the Newcastle bureau. All other interviews conducted by editors Caroline Abomeli, 15, Gavin Fletcher, 14, Senab Adekunle, 15, Aminah Carter, 14, and reporters Carlene Thomas, 13, Chris Fletcher, 12, Ricky Allen, 11 in London. This article was published in Public Service & Local Government.
