The Creative Craft Centre in Dewsbury announced that 3 of their shop windows have been smashed, in less than a week.
After sharing their upset on social media, The Craft Centre said on its Facebook page; “Unfortunately we were the victim of vandalism again last night, 3 windows broken in one week!”
Prior to the attacks, the Craft Centres shop front, and adjoining café, consisted of 6 large windows–until one was broken on Thursday 14th March, another was smashed on Sunday 17th March, and most recently the third window was obliterated on Wednesday 20th March at 7:50pm.
“It is just very disheartening,” says shop owner Jenny speaking to Northwest Security. “I feel sick coming to work each morning because I just never know what I am going to find now.”
The Creative Craft Centre has been situated in Dewsbury Town Centre for over 22 years, but now the town is seeing a spate of “mindless acts of vandalism”. An elusive group of young teenagers are consistently running a-muck in the town centre and causing damage to local businesses such as the dental surgery Baker & Rigby– who’s windows have also been smashed, and the Borough Market based sweet shop Toffee Smiths– who recently had their closed shutters prised open from the bottom.
Credit: Facebook
“When we found the 3rd smashed window, we called the police.” says Jenny, “But at the same time as the police were dealing with us, this group of youths were breaking into a another building.”
“We know it’s a group of youths because they were caught on another occasion on another shops CCTV. They looked like young teenagers.”
The cost of repairing just one of Creative Craft Centres windows sits in the region of £500-£800. Times that by 3 and it equals to a costly repair job. Another security option that Jenny has considered is the fitting of shutters, but she says it is just more expensive and from the sweet shops experience might not do any good at the moment.
“I am not repairing the windows until something is done about the delinquents running a-mock. I just can’t afford for it to keep happening.
“For now we have bordered the windows up and we are going to work with a few of the local groups to paint a mural across them. I think we are going to paint something from Batman with broken glass across the boards to show that we still have our humour.”
The craft centre is moving forward by turning what has been a such a negative experience into something positive that can reunite the community in a small way.
“We just have to remain positive and remember that this is only one terrible week out of 22 great years. And it isn’t just us that have been targeted, we don’t want to be victims. It’s the whole business community here. We are all being effected as the vandalism continues.”
If you have any information regarding the attack on Creative Craft Centre- Dewsbury, please contact West Yorkshire Police on 101.
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