Opinion: The Ferret...digs behind the headlines

Young people in the Wiltshire town of Highworth have been banned from hanging around in front of their local youth centre. Police have introduced a six-month dispersal order on Newburgh Place in Highworth, which includes the youth club. The Swindon Advertiser's Lyndsay Scanlan girded her loins and took herself down to the club. Her balanced report declared that most of the teenagers hanging around outside "did not do anything antisocial", although if she plucked up the courage to speak to any of them their quotes didn't make it to the final version, eliciting visions of a reporter hiding behind a tree making notes on what young people are wearing. The paper also asked its readers to vote on whether the dispersal order was a good idea: half said it was. Quite how young people are supposed to get to their youth club without congregating outside is clearly another matter.