5:00pm Wednesday 17th March 2010
By Nazia Parveen
POLICE have announced a crackdown on youngsters drinking and taking drugs in the grounds of Whalley Abbey.
It comes after a residents and staff at the abbey complained about anti-social behaviour in the area during the evenings at a recent police and residents meeting.
Reports of youngsters smoking cannabis and drinking under a bridge which is accessed via the grounds of the abbey have been received by police.
Officers are now stepping up patrols in the abbey grounds located in The Sands during evenings and weekends.
Justine Brown, community beat manager for Whalley, said: “We have had a number of reports if kids hanging around under the bridge on a sandbank taking drugs and drinking.
“They are gaining access to this area via the grounds of Whalley Abbey and we have also had reports of some of the youths openly smoking cannabis.”
Staff alerted the police after youths began congregating near the historic building and the ruins near the steps of the house in the grounds were vandalised.
PC Brown added: “The issues have been highlighted to us and we will be concentrating our patrols in the trouble hotspots.”
Whalley councillor, Joyce Holgate backed the police action and questioned whether parents were aware of their children’s behaviour.
She added: “It does really concern me that the youths of the village are behaving like this and we have got to do everything we can to try and engage them in other activities so that they behave anti-socially.
“It was the church yard last time and they seemed to have moved on to the abbey grounds now.
“We have to find a way of getting them to do something different.”
The abbey was built between 1330 to 1380 and at the dissolution of the Monastery in 1537, the property passed into private hands, and Ralph Assheton adapted it to make an Elizabethan Manor House.
It remained a private residence until 1923, when the Church of England acquired possession.
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