IN RESPONSE to your article 'Mindless vandals strike Culcheth', August 14, I, as a youth would like to express my discontent that every young person in Culcheth is being labelled as a 'rampaging youth'.

In all fairness I accept that my friends and I do sit on Culcheth Green and are guilty of leaving some rubbish, possibly due to the lack of bins, but in our defence, there is nowhere else for us to go.

Every Wednesday and Thursday the Culcheth Youth Centre is available for us to attend, and as quite a regular member that is where I spend some of those evenings but, despite our campaigning and the sometimes thankless efforts of the youth workers who run the club, its future is still in some doubt.

Admittedly my group of friends constructed a 'large' tree house on the Culcheth Green, but, in my opinion, compared to some of the vandalism taking place it isn't doing harm to anyone, is giving us something constructive to do and is an activity that involves team and communication building skills.

As I am sure the police are aware, there is a divide in the young people of Culcheth and implying that everyone is as bad as each other is just unfair.

So as not to give undeserved abuse to those on 'the other side of the fence', I am not saying all my friends are perfect and I know that some of the blame should be pointed at us, and I also know that it is not just those that I do not get on with causing unnecessary damage, but 'putting windows through' isn't.

I was also unaware of the incident with the industrial bin until reading your article so I can only assume that that was not my friends either.

I would like to add that on at least three separate occasions my group of friends have been subject to people on motorised scooters who don't like our clothes, riding onto the grass and in one case succeeding to knock us over.

Often the people on these vehicles are still learners and have an extra passenger riding with them.

We've had abuse shouted at us and, although the verbal abuse has died down the incidents with scooters have all been within the last three months.

The police and villagers are extremely concerned about our tree house but our welfare seems to be overlooked.

As for the used condoms and broken glass, there are more than three pubs in Culcheth and its surrounding areas - adults also have the ability to get more drunk than is decent and could end up smashing bottles just as well as anyone else.

This article really aggravated me, as I find smashing bus shelters, smashing windows and digging up paths as senseless and pointless as I am sure you do, so I intend to make sure none of these incidents can ever be blamed on me or my friends again, and that the people who actually did it can be caught.

Writing this letter sitting at my office desk, at work, I can only imagine the 'fun' my friends are having breaking things.

K STYLES

Culcheth