UKC

After a couple of reasonable years/summers without too much vandalism more work and being aware to negative antisocial activity needs to take place at Pex Hill Qy. Some of us , friends of the quarry take care to watch for glass, plastic bottles, general  rubbish and objects catapulting into the air that fly into the quarry from time to time and this has been a task on a regular basis. After a recent bagging of detritus it is noted this week that more of the usual garbage has entered this climbing idyll.  More and more of the same  mess with glass at the bottom of routes too!  As well as shopping bags full of plates, utensils wrappers, butter and other things associated with the used  'disposable'  barbacue that accompanied  the rubbish.  And also the fact that  climbers were made aware in recent years of the need not to go around the fencing to the top of routes , yet more undesirables are seen getting up to the fence and moving aside railings to wander half stoned round the tops and then to throw stuff down makes you despair.  When will it all end as some of us are just sick of it all, with no-one to really deter all of this, will we ever keep this place the idyll it should be. We try to carry on but I don't know for how long ,  take care out there!

Trouble is this kind of thing happens in any park that's within reach of the scallies. It happens on the park in the nearby village of Cronton and it happens in my local park, Woolton Woods, in Liverpool. Pex is owned by United Utilities who are helpful but maintenance of open spaces is not their core business. Even if it was owned by the Council, they can't afford teams of rangers these days. I and fellow members of Friends of Pex have collected bag after bagful of rubbish, as have the Conservation Volunteers and the local Parish Council. I don't know what the answer is.

Sadly because of the scallies, I gave up on pex a good while ago. I think it it was finding mud filled bottled deliberately thrown at obvious holds/breaks which finally did it.  A clear attempt to injure a climber.

 It’s not just the glass/litter, which is an ever present risk, the yobs have thrown stuff at the climbers, including a bike frame.

I've spent a lot of time at Woodhouse Scar doing similar.  I know demonising or challenging the kids doesn't help: if they ask what I'm up to I explain and I've never had any issues. Keeping a place as clean as possible  does seem to slow the pace of deposition of crap. I feel for them as when I was a young hormone affected teen I roamed for miles across countryside and through villages and mainly annoyed miserable bastards, like the game keepers of the Spencer estate. I had amazing prospects, the best they had ever been for kids from outside the middle classes. If I wanted stuff to do there were youth clubs or scouts or sport or library books... it was all there and convenient. You could argue from the modern sink estate perspective these kids look to have been royally screwed and we are lucky they are stoned and chucking the odd bottle and not rioting over the huge social injustice of it all.

Nice to here from you  P  , my mate and I have not seen you around for a bit. I continue to do what we can but it is so difficult again. I get concerned certainly with the broken glass  and I wouldn't want any climber to have trek to A+E , and all the youngsters out there trying to climb they all don't get into such wanton mischief for being young they just want to do the great outdoors. They and ourselves should do so in safety. And of course and dare I mention it and I hope my mate doesn't mind but we also wouldn't want any more flying Microwaves  , that sort of nonsense means Real  hurt...  I would hope that maybe U.U could spare a few bob sometime to see the rails are closed off again.   As Dylan once said maybe "we'll win the war  after loosing every battle", lets hope for some common sense. See you around.

I’m not sure that Cronton qualifies as a sink estate