A PENSIONER says the closure of a popular alleyway hangout for troublemakers has changed his life.

Neighbours in Blackbird Leys waged a 10-year campaign to have the rat-run between Pegasus Road and Windale Avenue closed.

Jimmy Hayes, of Windale Avenue, Blackbird Leys, was tormented for years by groups of teenagers who gathered outside his house, drinking, taking drugs and vandalising his property.

Oxfordshire County Council finally padlocked three gates on the alleyway in January.

Legal difficulties hampered progress of the ‘Gating Order’ – the first in Oxfordshire to be approved.

The 71-year-old widower, who was burgled four times by people using the alleyway to get into his garden shed, said: “I’m much, much more relaxed now.

“I don’t have to lie in bed at night listening to the shouting, kicking cans and swearing.

“At the beginning, I used to go out and try and talk to the lads, but in the end I just gave up because they kept swearing at me.

“I was worried about coming home and finding my window blown in or my car damaged.

“It has changed my life. I was thinking of moving before, especially after my wife died.

“I’ve got a better quality of life now.

“I can sit in the garden. It’s very peaceful, although there have been one or two occasions when I was in bed and I thought I heard a din.

“It sounded like someone was moving my wheelie bin, I looked out and saw a chap perched on top of the railings of the gate.

“But other than that it’s heaven by comparison.”

Making and installing the gates cost about £5,000.

A decision to seal off the alleyway was originally taken by Oxford City Council in 2005, but was halted by the county council, which needed to approve the scheme because the alley was a public highway.

County Hall was given the power to gate off alleyways and footpaths on crime and antisocial behaviour grounds in September 2006 as part of the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act.

Rodney Rose, the county council’s cabinet member for transport: “There was never any excuse for the kind of behaviour that led to the need for this gating order in the first place.

“The very fact that the authorities have had to act is a sad reflection on the perpetrators of the antisocial behaviour in question.

“We’re delighted that the gate has improved quality of life of local residents.”

eallen@oxfordmail.co.uk