McBride Park 'epicentre' of bad behaviour, resident says

Heavy drinking, drug taking and parties loud enough to keep neighbouring households awake - one resident has spoken up about more antisocial behaviour he alleges is coming from local young people in and around Lake Hayes Estate.

He says he often resorts to vacating his master bedroom to sleep on another side of the house to try and escape the noise coming from McBride Park.

“I was going to bed with earplugs in, it was pretty bad."

McBride Park - the 'epicentre' of bad behaviour?

He and his family have neighboured the public park and playground for a number of years and he says the problem of young people congregating there has persisted over that time.

He calls the location "the epicentre of the activities - typically hard drinking, anti-social noise throughout the night, spilling over into abuse of residents, vandalism, and threats of violence".

He says he has observed children who appear as young as 12 or 13 at the location, often with attitudes he describes as having "no respect for anyone around them".

He reckons it is particularly bad at nighttime on weekends and school holidays, and he is steeling himself for another summer of compromise.

He says in earlier days he made attempts to negotiate with those causing trouble, attempting to reason with them to keep the noise down or go elsewhere.

"They knew they were up to no good as you'd go out to say hello and they'd sprint off down the road."

Other times, he has copped abuse, being called "every name under the sun", and even been threatened physically.

He has contacted local police to voice his concerns, and he's gone along to a residents group meeting to share them too, but says both attempts at action failed to "gain traction".

At the residents meeting he says he felt there was "a bit of a resigned attitude to the whole thing" as people had already unsuccessfully "tried to have a bit of a crack at it".

He has also gone down the track of attempting to report a noise complaint to the Queenstown Lakes District Council, but says staff directed him instead to police, telling him it was not their jurisdiction as the concern did not relate to a "dwelling". He did so, only to have police suggest he direct his noise complaint to the council.

He says "the risk of having his back fence tagged" concerns him less than the thought the young people involved are "setting themselves up for a crappy existence".

In response to Crux, Senior Sergeant Glenn Wilkinson says police in Queenstown are not seeing any particular increase in anti-social behaviour by youths in this area.

"However, if members of the public see any suspicious or anti-social behaviour that concerns them, please contact us at the time it is occurring so we can respond.

“When you report suspicious behaviour, it builds a picture for us of where we need to be – we need the public’s help in making our community safer by making those reports as soon as possible.”

Suspicious behaviour should be reported to 111 if it is happening, while a report after an incident should be made online at 105.police.govt.nz or by calling 105, the senior sergeant says.

A visit to the children's playground by Crux revealed a smashed beer bottle on a nearby footpath.

Meanwhile, the Lake Hayes resident who has spoken with Crux is hopeful more reporting "may help galvanise some action on the issue".

"I feel like collectively we’ve all been turning a bit of a blind eye and there’s some bad stuff happening."

He says there has become a "culture" of this sort of behaviour in the neighbourhood, with one generation of young people fostering it in the next.

"It seems to just roll over from year to year."

He thinks more locals should be "very concerned" about the paths these young people are "going down at such a young age".

"I know there are worse things that are going on (in the world) and I sort of feel a bit like an old man (for complaining)...But probably more than anything it’s the kids I worry about, that just breaks my heart, and the thought of my kids following that path.”

Councillor Melissa White, who lives in Lake Hayes Estate, and the Lake Hayes Estate and Shotover Country Community Association did not respond to requests from Crux for comment on the concerns raised.

The resident decided to speak up after reading last week of two teenagers on an e-motorbike allegedly filming as they threw an item of food at a passing cyclist on a trail near Lake Hayes.

That incident came off the back of allegations on a Lake Hayes Estate and Shotover Country community Facebook page in the days prior that four young teenage boys had been throwing stones at vehicles on Ladies Mile and kicking parked cars along Hope Avenue in the early hours of the morning.