The Grangetown, South Bank and Eston estates near Middlesbrough are at the heart of chaotic scenes over the last couple of weeks, which saw two police officers among seven dead in a wrong-way car crash
Residents on an estate at the centre of chaotic scenes on Teesside that have left nine people dead have claimed there is ‘no money, no jobs and no hope’ for people living there.
Two police officers were among seven killed in a horror wrong-way crash on the A66 before a woman and her niece died in a fatal house fire that police no longer think is linked.
Local MPs have described the violence around Middlesbrough’s Grangehill estate as “terrorism”, with rival gangs blamed for tit-for-tat rammings, arson attacks and stabbings. And according the The Sun, residents on the front line feel abandoned.
One woman said: “I’ve lived here for 32 years and it’s been getting worse and worse. It was once a nice place, where people kept their gardens nice, their houses tidy and their kids in school.
“Now it feels alien with rubbish dumped everywhere, people wandering about in dressing gowns in the middle of the day and loads of kids who stopped going to school through Covid and never managed to return full-time. There’s addicts everywhere and, if it’s not drugs, it’s drink.
“It’s an embarrassment.”
Another local said: “People just don’t trust the police, and why would they?
“Had they got on top of the problems at the start, we wouldn’t be here. They don’t listen either… it’s a waste of time.”
One resident shared: “It’s totally lawless. The police have ignored the problems in the area for years and now they want to come in heavy-handed.
“It won’t go down well.”
And one person working at a takeaway in Grangetown added: “There’s no money and there’s no hope. There’s no work to be had, no money and nothing to do but try and make it in other ways.
“The whole area has been failed and forgotten by politicians and it just feels like there’s no going back.”
The area is “overflowing” with bins, graffiti and boarded-up homes, the Sun reported.
Middlesbrough has been ranked the most dangerous town in England and Wales, with 150 crimes per 1,000 residents compared with a national average of 72.
The violence spiralled into the national spotlight last Saturday (August 22 ), when a Volkswagen Passat fled police and drove the wrong way along the A66 dual carriageway. The Passat smashed head-on into a marked armed response vehicle, killing five young men; Cole Worthy, 17, Theo Rae, 17, Makai Saddington, 18, Michael Robert Cahill, 23, and Jakub Matusiak, 23.
Two Cleveland Police officers, PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38, also died. Police believe the crash was preceded by a ram-raid just 40 minutes earlier, when a Volvo XC60 repeatedly hit a house in Acklam belonging to the father of Worthy, amid a bitter feud involving the teenager and a former friend turned gang rival.
Days later, tragedy struck Grangetown again. In the early hours of Wednesday (August 26), a home on Birchington Avenue was set alight in what police say was a deliberate arson attack.
Natalie McDonald, 34, and her seven-year-old niece Valentina Foster, visiting for the summer holidays, died in the blaze. A 48-year-old woman remains in critical condition and two men aged 23 and 31 have been arrested.
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