I've been living in the Trilby Road/Vestris Road area for nearly a year now and my husband and I absolutely love it! Having moved from the rowdiness of Clapham we love that we actually know our neighbours for once now!

One thing we have noticed recently is that the alleyway between Sunderland Road and Trilby Road which we have to walk through, unless we want a long diversion half way around the south circular, is worryingly more and more frequented by groups of intimidating youths hanging around. I'm not much older than these kids, but it makes me feel increasingly uncomfortable walking home from the train station after work, let alone later in the evening. Has anyone else noticed the increase in this? We've now also had groups of kids hanging around outside our house about 10pm at night which has only started happening over the past month.

About two weeks ago we had a letter through from the met police letting us know that there had been an increase in damage to property, anti-social behaviour and general rowdiness/threatening behaviour and for residents to get in touch if they'd noticed anything. This week there has also been two incidents where police have been present around the area with flashing lights. I felt at first I was being paranoid about the increase in activity in the alley way but now i'm not so sure, this letter really concerned me. Can anyone else shed some light on the issues? Is there a need for CCTV in the alley way?

What can we do??