Letter from Newly formed Beechmount Residents group

On Friday 3rd August 2012, a well known political party organised a mass leaflet drop in Beechmount in a malicious attempt to frighten people from contributing to the newly formed residents group here. This followed our successful public meeting held the previous Wednesday despite attempts of sabotage from both the parish priest and the aforementioned political party.

This leaflet was entirely inaccurate in its accusations and tried to scare the people of Beechmount with bizarre allegations such as 'dissident' republican infiltration and by raising emotive topics such as rape as well as several other groundless accusations and insinuations. We do not intend to engage in a tit for tat leafleting war with any political party, it is the right of all residents (of all political persuasions and none) to organise within the streets where they live and this is happening.

The emergence of an independent residents group has clearly frightened those who think that they have the right to own and control the districts in which we live. The political party who visited and leafleted Beechmount on Friday largely represent the interests of business men, landlords and the new property class, we the residents of Beechmount cannot afford to escape from the realities of our situation.

We wish to stress

• The newly formed people's residents group is just that, a peoples group not steered or directed by any political party. People of all political beliefs and none are welcome. The same cannot be said of the old residents association.

• We have no problem engaging with genuine statutory bodies and hold bin men, firefighter’s ambulance crews in the highest esteem. However we do not view the forced promotion of the PSNI (on a politically driven agenda) as necessary for genuine development of our community.

• We envisage circumstances where we will engage positively with young people involved in anti-social behavior, handing that task over to the agent handlers of the PSNI clearly has not worked. This is not merely a political issue; it is a vitally important social one causing daily crisis in our streets.

ON THE SUBJECT OF THE PSNI: Should a resident wish to phone the PSNI they will do so...it is their life. We don’t feel the need to spoon feed state policing to the people of Beechmount but rather put our energy into making it a better place to live. We will not however facilitate PSNI intelligence gathering by identifying or providing to them, details of local youths, residents or those with alternative political beliefs.

• At no time have we mentioned the development of a vigilante group (there will be no vigilante group) yet Beechmount has been plagued with every form of anti-social activity in recent years and people are crying out for intervention. The people will in time decide how best to deal with these issues.

• We are not out to dispute claims of some good work done by the previous residents association, yet we say clearly that more needs to be done to restore pride and security to the people of Beechmount that we as residents will be working on.


Signed: Liam Morrison & Tommy Doherty