TWO abandoned cars have appeared on Angerland Common, Hatfield, just weeks after the area was cleaned up and supposedly secured following complaints by residents.

Twelve burnt out vehicles were removed by Welwyn Hatfield District Council on August 31 after consultation with the landowners, English Partnership, but two more were torched by joyriders last week on a piece of the common belonging to an anonymous owner.

A spokesman for Welwyn Hatfield District Council said: "We have contacted the private landowner, and are making arrangements to have the two vehicles removed as quickly as possible.

"He did have ditches dug, but they got in by forcing a lock. We are putting some bollards in at the moment."

Mr Dean Archer of Hatfield Residents' Action Group said: "The council have put in tree trunks and ditches with a JCB, but they are still getting in."

Newly-elected Hatfield Town Councillor Nick Atkinson blamed the stolen and dumped cars on a lack of things to do for young people, calling for a major initiative to tackle this.

"The problem with burnt out cars is a symptom of a bigger problem - a lack of things for the youth of Hatfield to do," he said.

"There will always be a small minority that will steal cars and burn them - that is just their mindset.

"There are many others that do it because they have nothing else to do.

"If you talk to any of them, they tell you they are bored. They just congregate and look for trouble."

He intends to contact commercial developers such as Starbucks to investigate the possibility of a coffee shop or a cyber-cafe, and also to ask local schools and the University of Hertfordshire if they can make their sports facilities available in the evenings.

Mr Archer has written to several councillors suggesting that stock car racing could return to the old circuit south of the A414 North Orbital Road opposite the university.

"If we gave the joyriders somewhere to go maybe they would stop destroying our property," he said.

"It would also teach them how to behave, drive safely and maintain engines."

The action group has organised a clean-up of Bunchley's Pond near Angerland Common on Sunday October 28, with the help of volunteer frogmen and local cub scouts.

October 17, 2001 19:09

Alex Lewis