Are you (whether young or not yourself) intimidated when you walk past a group of young people wearing hoods? Lots of people are – but I still believe that it’s not how young people look but how young people behave that counts. In itself, there’s no particular reason to fear a piece of fabric – but it gets seen a symbolic of a bundle of fears and so induces worry for many people.

There is no question that there are a few young people whose behaviour is wrong. Full stop. They are the cause of much of the graffiti, vandalism and worse that does goes on. Those are the ones that our Highgate and Muswell Hill Safer Neighbourhood Teams are getting to know and engage with so that they can be persuaded out of bad behaviour and involved in local activities more positively than before. Because in the end – condemning people for doing wrong isn’t enough; we need to change behaviour so that we all benefit in the future.

It was clear at a recent local Neighbourhood Assembly recently, that there still were lots of parents saying ‘there is nothing for our kids to do’. And it was quite clear from the answers given by the Labour councillors responsible for Children’s Services and Crime and Community issues, that the provision of youth services in the west of Haringey has been reduced and reduced until now we have just two nights a week provision at the Muswell Hill Youth Centre – and that is paid for by the local (police) Safer Neighbourhood Team, not the Council.

All kids need decent facilities – recreational, sporting, etc – regardless of whether they come from middle-class or working-class families – if they are to be engaged in positive activities rather than the ones that get complained about. Haringey Council need to put some serious funding into local facilities in the west.The Muswell Hill Youth Centre should be funded to open every evening – and they should be then able to have proper entry registration so that gangs excluded from other sports facilities don’t come up to Muswell Hill and cause trouble there instead.

Matters are made worse by the Government’s insistence on PFI deals at local schools. These bring in companies to run matters – and they then hike the prices for using of facilities so that local organisations can’t afford it. As one local woman pointed out at the Neighbourhood Assembly, the charges they make are pricing people like the Woodcraft Folk out of the market. Indeed, I have had complaints that two other local groups had have to give up the ghost a while back because hiring halls was now far too expensive. And yet schools often have fantastic facilities that often could be put to good community use – rather than standing empty – outside school hours. So the Government in effect stops young people using them, resulting in more hanging around with nothing much to do – and then spends huge amounts of money on dealing with the effects as mischief creeps in. Not smart, prudent or joined-up government!

To end though on a positive note of what can be done when people work together: the Bounds Green Safer Neighbourhood Team last summer ran a summer football club in the Scout Park which was so successful that this has now become Bounds Green United and is overseen by Tottenham Hotspurs, with a little funding from the Council. This is a good way forward. It would be far more constructive if all the wards in the Borough were part of a football league where they could compete on the field of sport rather than gangs engaging in territorial wars. Find a positive action – and then we may all want to hug a hoodie!

(c) Lynne Featherstone, 2007