STEPHEN LEWIS visits a York estate that has gone from crime hotspot to crime-free zone in only a year.

A YEAR ago, residents of a crime-plagued York estate adopted a desperate, last-ditch strategy to deal with the young thugs who were making their lives a misery.

It amounted to safety in numbers. At the first sign of trouble, they resolved that all householders in the Tedder Road area of Acomb would come out of their homes and stand together to confront the yobs.

One out, all out, they called it. And it was a sign of just how bad things were getting.

The run-down estate was being gradually demolished and rebuilt. Section by section, ageing council and Ministry of Defence homes were being pulled down and replaced with smart new housing.

But the empty homes awaiting demolition acted as a magnet for young vandals. They started fires, tore down walls and pulled out window frames from half built homes. Residents were also plagued by drug dealers and claimed they suffered verbal and physical abuse.

"It was terrible," says Tedder Road resident Terry Baker. "They were just running around smashing windows and things. The empty houses gave them somewhere to go, to take their girlfriends, get up to all sorts of things."

The fact that some of the empty MoD homes were being used to house homeless people on the council's emergency housing list only added to the problems, Terry says. "You'd get ex-husbands kicking the door, that kind of thing."

The problems were made worse by continual delays in the building process. When City of York Council teamed up with Home Housing Association, Barratt Homes and S Harrison Construction for the multi-million pound regeneration, council tenants were given a choice. They could move to council properties elsewhere in York: or they could move into new Home Housing homes on their own estate once it had been redeveloped.

Many opted to stay, moving into new Home Housing properties as their council homes were demolished. This, however, created a logistical nightmare. Residents couldn't move out of their old homes until new homes had been built for them - but new homes couldn't be built until the old homes had been demolished.

The result: frustrated tenants faced delay after delay in their longed-for moves. Some had their moving day put back as many as ten times.

That was then, however. Today, the picture is very different. The transformed estate is scarcely recognisable from the troubled crime hot-spot of scarcely a year ago.

Blocks and terraces of neat, brick-built homes - some privately owned, others managed by Home Housing Association - sit back from the road, each with their own off-street parking. And the atmosphere of fear and frustration has gone, to be replaced by relief and pride.

The estate is not yet complete, and workers are still busy on a large area of land between Tedder and Slessor Roads. The homes overlooking the building site are noisy and dusty, and the children's play area has not yet been put in.

With the end of the long redevelopment in sight, however, residents seem content. "There have been teething problems," says Terry. "But when they have gone it will be a really good place."

He moved into a temporary new home on Tedder Road after his old house on the opposite side of the street was demolished, and is still waiting to move into the home of his choice further down the road.

It has been inconvenient. He will be a year later moving in than he had once hoped. But it will be worth it. "Crime has absolutely gone, and once the park has gone up the estate will be excellent," he says.

Other residents agree. Tessa Brooks moved to York from the south and had never lived on the estate before moving into her new Tedder Road home last March. But she did come up to see the area before. "It is a huge improvement to what it was before," she says. "Especially now the end is in sight. There have been no problems since I have lived here and we feel quite safe."

Much of the fall in crime is undoubtedly due to the fact that the empty homes awaiting demolition have now gone. There are also more people living on the estate and Neighbourhood Watch is taking off, according to Terry.

Safer York Partnership also puts part of the reduction in crime down to the way the new estate has been designed.

From the outset, the intention was to "design out crime", says Dilys Jones, City of York Council's Head of Commissioning. That was one of the reasons why the entire estate was redeveloped in one go.

All 150 new homes have lockable doors and windows, outside lights, and fencing to secure gardens. Patio doors leading into the back gardens from homes are double-locked, says Terry, and gates leading to alleys can be locked too.

The off-street parking spaces should leave the streets uncluttered, so neighbours can keep an eye on each other's homes more easily - and the estate was designed to minimise dark corners and hidden alleyways.

The result, according to the Safer York Partnership, is an estate which has seen dramatic falls in crime. And it is one which could well serve as a model for future housing in York.

North Yorkshire Police has awarded developers Harrison "Secured By Design" approval for the new estate - recognition that it meets best practice for new housing in terms of crime reduction.

PC Jim Shanks, Safer York Partnership's architectural liaison officer, has long been pressing for new housing to be designed with an eye on reducing crime.

Estates developed to Secured By Design standards can often see reductions in crime of up to 50 per cent, he says.

"It's about trying to ensure that you have got the right sort of environment to make crime less easy."

Unfortunately, while many housing associations appreciate the need to design new housing with an eye to crime prevention, many private developers are slower to come on board, he says.

Government legislation is needed, he believes, although he praises York council planners for their efforts to encourage developers to be more crime-conscious.

In the meantime, the new-look Tedder Road estate sets a good example. Not everything is perfect. Yvonne Swann, who lives in a new terraced house on Slessor Road and has been on the estate for 20-odd years, says there is nowhere for children to play. And it's not true that the estate is completely crime free, she says, because a neighbour on the opposite side of the road from her was burgled.

"But it is a lot better," she says. "It is very quiet - at the moment."

Long may it continue.

What is Secured By Design?

Secured By Design is an initiative run by the Association Of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) to try to encourage new developments to be built with an eye to crime prevention.

It sets out standards and guidelines that developers can follow to "crime proof" estates. These cover everything from design of doors and windows to layout of roads and footpaths.

Examples include:

- Roads and footpaths: should be "visually open, direct and well used". Clear signing should identify the best routes through a development so that these will be well used and so safer.

- Cul-de-sacs: cul-de-sacs that experience burglary problems tend to be those that back on to open land, tow-paths or railway lines, or are linked to one another by alleys and footpaths. Extra security measures might be needed in this case. Footpaths linking cul-de-sacs are particularly problematic, ACPO says, and the layout may need to be re-considered.

- Plants: certain trees and shrubs can provide natural hiding places. Shrubs lower than one metre are recommended, or taller trees with no foliage below two metres, so there is a clear field of vision. Thorny plants can, however, prevent graffiti and help to make a garden fence more secure.

- End walls: Blank end walls should be avoided if they overlook areas to which the public have access.

- Communal areas: playgrounds and other communal areas have the potential to generate crime or anti-social behaviour. They should be designed so they are overlooked by nearby homes, and so that they have safe routes to come and go.

- Lighting: lights on a little-used path can create a false sense of security. If there is a history of crime on a path, it makes more sense to close it at night than to light it.

- Doors and windows: standards set for locks on doors and windows.

Updated: 09:45 Tuesday, February 01, 2005