Dunfermline Press | Opinion | City-centre hostel should be closed

Thursday, 4th December, 2008

Published: Thursday, 21st August, 2008 09:00

City-centre hostel should be closed – right now!

Comments (1)

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COUNCILLOR Sullivan is right about the James Bank hostel (Press, 14th August).

As a town-centre resident, I know all he said is true; if anything, he tactfully underplays things.

The vicinity of the hostel is the arena of frequent disturbance, drug trading, shouting, aggression, begging, open drinking and human spillage.

I’ve seen residents in High Street doorways, pathetically ‘divvying up’ bag-loads of sorry-looking tat and items filched from a dismal sportswear store.

The hostel is near an off-licence and a chemist: Does it ever get ugly round here? You better believe it.

These guys need professional care to protect them from themselves and each other. It’s wrong to dump them together in misery if they are to meet their challenges and learn adult behaviour.

They mustn’t be discarded en masse in our squalid town centre, where they set the tone.

The Kingsgate extension will be a festering junkie-fest until residents get the help they desperately need: and that starts with closing that hostel now.

They’re having their evening shout-a-thon outside the off-licence even as I write.

They deserve the chance to win respect: close the James Bank and give them pleasant, rural rehab facilities where they can avoid each other’s deadly influence and do useful, rewarding things like growing produce to eat and sell, to instil pride, dignity and health.

It’s scandalous to just scrap such sad, vulnerable people with so much to offer.

Keith Mitchell,

40c East Port, Dunfermline

S Allan

Aug 21 08 20:11

Our Ref: 846

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I accept that everyone is entitled to their opinion but it does feel that the Dunfermline Press is behaving less than objectively on this issue! We have 2 opposing views regarding James Bank on the letter page and yet the heading for this one is printed in huge letters, making a very dramatic statement when you open the page. Do the Dunfermline Press have a hidden agenda? If they don't then I'm really confused as to why they are choosing to report on this subject in the way they have done the past 2 weeks. Am I wrong in thinking that in last weeks poll only 42% felt that the hostel should definitely be relocated? However 56% felt it was either in a good position or didn't see a need to move it. I expect my local paper to give both sides of the argument, but please, do it in a fair and objective way!!

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