YOUTHS who congregate on a set of Colne playing fields will have to find a new place to ‘hang out’ once railings are installed.

According to Pendle’s parks bosses, people who live in Skipton Road, near the King George V Playing Fields, have had to put up with groups of youths, who sit on a wall and antagonise them by engaging in anti-social behaviour.

They have drawn up plans to install railings on the wall to stop the trouble-makers using it as a seat and steer them away from the fields.

Councillors on the bor-ough’s Colne Committee gave the scheme the go ahead at a meeting. The playing fields have been plagued by anti-social yobs for a number of years.

Two years ago vandals went on a rampage in the sports clubhouse, smashing the toilets before ripping pipes from the walls.

In the same incident the floors at the pavilion were flooded, and toilet mirrors and walls were smashed with a sledgehammer.

Town hall chiefs are hoping the railings will put an end to problems. Police have also pledged to crack-down on the issue. Colin Patten, Pendle’s parks and recreation service manager, said: “Local residents living on Skipton Road opposite King George V Playing Fields have been exper-iencing a number of anti-social problems allegedly associated with this public open space.

“Members of this committee, the council’s parks and recreation service and other external agencies have been working together in an endeavour to alleviate this anti-social behaviour.

“By installing stub railings to the top of the existing dwarf stone wall along the frontage of Skipton Road, youths will be unable to use the wall top as a seating area preventing them from antagonising local residents whose prop-erty face the open space.”

Members of the Colne Committee agreed to allocate £15,000 from its budget to pay for the railings.