"Most people here are wonderful"

George Carter gazes down Bramham Road past the building site of the new Chapelfields community house. "I've lived here 49 years," he says. "I've raised a family here, ten grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. And let me tell you, most of the people on this estate are wonderful."

It's a sunny morning almost a week after the "riot" in Chapelfields in which a policeman was injured after a gang of youths armed with pickaxe handles and bricks went on the rampage.

Five youths were arrested that night, two more the following day. Four people are now facing charges of affray.

In Bramham Road, there is little to show for the mayhem. Workmen in bright yellow jackets are working on the building site where the community house is to be. A few people - a young mum with a pushchair, a man in a tight fitting T-shirt - walk slowly along the street, drowsy in the sun.

George knows them both. Living on an estate such as Chapelfields, everybody knows everybody else - including the identity of the young people responsible for the recent aggravation.

The problem is that when trouble kicks off, decent, law-abiding people tend to go indoors and draw their curtains. "People are frightened," says George, a member of the residents' association.

All agree that only a tiny group is responsible for most of the trouble. "It's just the odd one per cent," says Kevin Shepherd, neighbourhood watch co-ordinator for Chapelfields Road. "Ninety-nine per cent of people here are decent people."

Coming from a man who has been threatened for reporting incidents to the police, and who has had eggs thrown at his window, that stands for something.

It is worth putting the recent trouble into perspective.

Last Thursday's riot - a "serious incident of public disorder" in the words of York police sergeant Colin Ventress - followed attacks on buses earlier in the week, which have resulted in late evening services through the estate being re-routed.

Many residents are angry, pointing out that the actions of a few are making life harder for everyone else. "A lot of people used to go to Acomb club and that," says George. "They can't now."

These were isolated incidents on an estate that by and large has been quiet for a long time, many point out.

Even on Barkston Grove, where Thursday night's trouble kicked off, residents are keen to keep it in perspective.

SD 'Bobby' Weeds was in bed when the trouble began. He heard a car in the distance racing and doing hand-brake turns. The car stopped at the end of Barkston Grove. "I heard them all piling out, and they started throwing bottles at the windows of houses," he says.

There were about six young people, male and female, in the car, he believes. Their behaviour was fuelled by alcohol. "They were very drunk, very buoyed up on adrenaline, they had their girlfriends with them."

As people began to come out of their homes to see what was going on, the youths ran down the street, smashing car windows at random, before running off.

"But that was all that happened in our street," Mr Weeds says. "I don't know what happened further up later on."

What happened was a confrontation with police which left one officer needing hospital treatment. While residents were angry, Mr Weeds insists that to describe it as a riot is stretching a point.

Until a year ago, he lived on a Glasgow estate where what happened last week "was a typical Friday night in Glasgow! This was not a riot".

One of the dangers of hyping things up, Mr Weeds says, is that areas get a reputation - one young people feel they have to live up to.

Compared to almost any of the Glasgow estates, Chapelfields is a good place to live.

When Mr Weeds and his family came here and his daughter started going to Oaklands School, and told her friends where she lived, they were shocked. "They said 'eugh, Chapelfields!'" Mr Weeds says. "But she laughed at them and said 'Chapelfields? It's posh!' That's what she thought. We have a front and back garden."

Barkston Grove on a warm summer afternoon is pleasant, he says. "You will see happy kids playing outside, neighbours sitting on their walls drinking tea and doing their gardens."

The estate is known for its community spirit. Sgt Mike Stubbs of York police points out that for the past four years, the estate has been peaceful and quiet. The recent problems are in "no way typical".

That may be so, but law-abiding residents should not have to put up with the kind of hooliganism that makes people's lives a misery.

Many locals would like to see a more visible police presence. Following last Thursday's events, police were out in force throughout the weekend. "We did not want anyone to think this kind of thing the trouble was going to become a trend," says York police commander Chief Supt Tim Madgwick.

"It was a small group of people who for a short time decided that they were taking the battle to us. We are not going to have that."

Residents, however, point out that instead of flooding the estate with police in the days after trouble, what they would like to see is more regular police patrols, and possibly a permanent police presence in the form of a police house.

Supt Madgwick can't promise that, although he does say it may be possible to share office space in the new community house for regular police surgeries.

He will do all he can to ensure local beat officers spend as much of their time in the area as possible and he has pledged to "fight his corner" for extra police resources for Chapelfields and other York estates.

Policing is only one part of the equation. Mr Woods says what the estate needs is for money to be spent on it. The recent troubles should act as a wake-up call.

"We need community areas, green areas, shops, telephone boxes," he says. "We need money spending on making sure the infrastructure is there."

The ageing council-run community centre closed in February and was later burned to the ground in a suspected arson attack. Since then there has not been a youth club on the estate.

There will be facilities for young people at the community house when it opens, hopefully before Christmas, says Acomb youth worker Sharon Hutchinson.

Until then, youth workers are restricted to going out on to the streets two evenings a week to chat to young people, running a Thursday job club from a converted bus, and taking youngsters on occasional outings.

Steve Galloway, city council leader and Westfield ward councillor, admits the community house is badly needed. "It should provide a focus for the community," he says.

Like most others, he stresses that Chapelfields is no worse than any other area of York in terms of anti-social behaviour, while admitting there is an "emerging problem, particularly relating to teenagers".

The council will do all it can in dealing with misbehaving council tenants, he says - although one of the problems with the estate is that many of the homes are now privately-owned, so the council is powerless to threaten the owners with eviction.

Coun Galloway is in favour of giving residents more control over the area - with more say in what happens, for example, with the new community house.

Schemes such as the York Pride block of flats initiative, in which council tenants will vet new tenants in return for assuming responsibility for looking after communal areas, may also give them more control over their lives.

The real solution may be for Chapelfields' famed community spirit to win out over the minority who cause trouble.

Kevin Shepherd believes that with support from the right quarters, more people may be willing to come forward as neighbourhood watch co-ordinators. That is the last thing the yobs would want and may be just what Chapelfields needs.

Updated: 11:08 Thursday, May 20, 2004