Life is now completely different in Derker but fears remain

“People thought they weren’t going to do anything from now on and the fear that instilled in other people. The police knocked on every house on our road and not one of them would give any information.”

Carol Knight’s car was fire bombed in May 2023 in Derker, Oldham in what she believes was a targeted attack. At the time, her daughter Angela Cosgrove was running for re-election as a councillor for the St James ward which covers the area and Carol believes it was linked to that.

Despite the damage, ‘nothing seemed to get done’ as a result. Looking back three years ago, Carol (pictured below) said: “The sad thing is people were afraid of opening up. People were frightened about things coming back onto them.

“I didn’t feel any reassurance. Nothing whatsoever that the police were going to look into it.

“A lot of people will have known because we had been here for 70 odd years and people said if they do not look after you, what will they do to us?

“That to me told me and my husband if they can’t do anything, why can I be bothered? That to me said something needed to be desperately done.”

Derker had not always been like that but the LDRS was told things had gone slowly down hill over the decades to the point the last ten years were ‘horrendous’. The area was described as being like a warzone where people were chased by gangs with machetes.

The LDRS was also told the amount of cannabis being smoked in the area was so bad people would ‘get a second hand high’ when going to the shops.

People would reportedly drive down the pavement so often you had to be careful stepping out of the front door and Nicola Kilgannon said the situation was ‘just frightening especially for vulnerable people’. She added: “You couldn’t even walk down the street. It was a nightmare.”

While people living in the community said there had always been a good relationship with their local police community support officers, there had been little other support in recent years due to cut backs to police forces across the country.

That all changed when Operation Vulcan moved in following a shooting in broad daylight. First started in the Cheetham Hill area, the Greater Manchester Police operation saw a massive ‘unrelenting’ increase in police in the area in a targeted operation to stamp out crime.

In over a year, there were more than 250 arrests, thousands of pounds worth of drugs recovered, more than 200 vehicles seized, and dozens of deadly weapons taken off the streets.

Authorities also shut down multiple cannabis farms recovering more than 200 plants, while also seizing multiple cars for various offences, including no insurance and dangerous driving.

It was not just being tough on crime. Community meetings were held and relationships built meaning more people came forward to report crimes, working closely with Oldham Council and local housing associations.

The LDRS was told the police came in and spoke to the children on their level bringing horses in and showing off the riot vans. Police even played football with them which got young children ‘knowing and respecting the law’.

Where people said there was little trust with the police before, the public engagement, visible enforcement raids, and heavy police presence built up a sense the authorities had the community’s back.  People felt able to let their children out to play knowing there was always police in the area keeping them safe.

Now the area feels completely different. Stoneleigh Park, which people once said used to be a hub of antisocial behaviour and drug dealing with weapons found in the bushes, now feels a lot safer and busier at the weekends.

The bowling green in the park was regularly targeted, even at one point having a sexually explicit image burned onto the lawn but as part of Operation Vulcan a new fence was installed to protect the pitch. This, according to those who use it, has made an ‘unbelievable’ difference with it now being ‘the best green in Oldham’.

Despite the progress, there are fears ‘a golden opportunity’ is being wasted. Balaclava-wearing teenagers on electric bikes and scooters, like in many parts across the UK, continue to be a problem, though e-bike campaign Operation Hurricane has brought some brief relief.

Carol said: “The big thing that needs to be built on is the trust. We do not want people to go ‘we never see you’. We do not want to go back to that.
“We wanted to work with the police. We were desperate to be honest. Derker wasn’t Derker anymore. It was like what some of the other areas of Oldham were like in the past.”

She said: “I think the reassurance they got out there and people gradually opened up,” adding: “People realised everyone was feeling the same. You were not just on your own.

“People had confidence at the meetings but the biggest question asked all the way through was what the future was when you are gone. You can see it slowly creeping back.”

Before the crackdown, Sarah Butler-Richmond told the LDRS: “You wouldn’t have parents threatening the children with the police because they weren’t there and the kids did not respect them.

“They did not care anymore. Through Vulcan and them talking to the parents and talking to the kids, it brought that trust back.

“I finish work at 10pm. I am out walking until at least 11pm and I still feel as safe as I do now as when Vulcan was around. You see the bikes flying around but it’s not as many.

“It doesn’t make you feel intimidated. I do not feel like I can’t go that way because there is a gang of them that way. In a couple of years maybe not but now I do think it’s changed for the better.”

People said Stoneleigh Park now felt much safer, even if there are concerns problems are returning. Credit: LDRS

However with the operation now having moved to Brinnington in Stockport, she, like others, feel the exit could have been smoother. Even just one walk through the park she said would be ‘letting people know there is a sort of presence here’.

She said: “I just think they are wasting a golden opportunity to connect with younger people before they start getting in trouble. You only need one bad apple and it spreads. That is the sad part.

“It’s sad. I feel now the children you have got coming through in the next generation, they are still part of the generation before.

“They do not know what to do because they know they can get more money if they start doing that. I think the police are wasting a golden opportunity of being present and being firm.”

Nervous about the future, she added: “You are afraid because you do not know what is going to happen. You have got to take every day as it comes.
“I can’t see what it is going to be looking like in the next two years. It could be worse. it could be better.

“As far as the future is concerned, you hope it stays the way it is and it doesn’t fall back to the way it was.”
Greater Manchester Police were approached for comment.