'This town is getting better - but one street gives it a bad name'

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

On a grey and rainy November afternoon in Rochdale town centre, a group of college students push each other down the high street in an abandoned shopping trolley.

Nobody tries to stop them, or even looks twice. Residents here say behaviour like this has become typical on the town's main shopping streets.

After a gang of youths were detained for launching fireworks in the town centre last month, some in Rochdale say antisocial behaviour is on the rise - but feel it is at odds with the 'positive' changes happening across the borough. "It speaks for itself really," one woman out shopping with her husband told the Manchester Evening News, gesturing at the group of teens in the trolley. "I think a lot of the young people here struggle because it is so expensive to do anything these days. READ MORE: 'I started this habit when I was 15 - I've lost so many people because of it since' READ MORE: One year since the blitz on crime began, 'Counterfeit Street' feels like a different place "When we were young we could go to the pictures in the morning and swimming in the afternoon for pennies out of our pockets.

You can't do that now." She claims she had noticed an increase in shoplifting over the last few years, but that she thought the antisocial behaviour in the area was largely to confined Yorkshire Street, not the areas which have recently enjoyed greater investment. "It's a shame because there's so much investment going on at the same time," she added. "When the town hall reopens it's going to be an amazing space.