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Mozart and mossies will make yob buzz off
Town Hall sounds out pioneering scheme
The latest brainwave to stop gangs of yobs causing trouble in shopping centres has been unveiled by Luton's crime-fighters – Mozart and mosquitos.
According to the Town Hall think-tank, both are very good at deterring tearaway teens from hanging around and causing trouble.
And Luton Borough Council's community safety team says it's picked up government grants to buy "music intervention" equipment, playing classical music, and mosquito units, which give out a high-pitched sound, for shopping parades on housing estates where youths are a nuisance.
The public safety wallahs, working with Bedfordshire Police and the Safer Luton Partnership, are looking at new initiatives to combat anti-social behaviour.
Research in the UK and America tells them that youths who congregate around precincts, upsetting traders and shoppers, can be calmed down by piped classical music.
As it's not hip-hop or gangsta rap, they tend to clear off. The boffins believe that Mozart is particularly effective at getting gangs to move along.
A music unit will be used outside the shops in Sundon Park Parade – a notorious hotspot for teenage troublemakers – for a trial period of three months.
Luton's north area community safety coordinator Gemma Widdowfield has already started talking to residents and business people about it.
She said: "The intention is to only use the music when there is a problem, not to play it for long periods. After the trail period, we will ask local people for an evaluation of the effectiveness of the equipment in this situation."
Mosquito units are small generators giving out a high frequency sound which, it is claimed, only people aged under 25 can hear due to the density of their inner ear bones.
For the full story and the locations involved see the March 23 edition of the Herald & Post
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Wednesday 30 May 2012
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