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Grandad and elderly mates at mercy of joy-riding school children on trolleys

Norman Adams pointing to the trolley, the kids dumping the trolley.
Norman Adams says he finds at least one abandoned trolley every day (Pictures: SWNS)

A grandad is fed up with unruly youngsters dumping Tesco trolleys by his house.

Norman Adams and his neighbours in Far Cotton, Northampton, have had to wade through stray trolleys to get to and from their homes ‘for decades’.

Tearaway teenagers and other children keep joy-riding them, while older people use them to take their shopping home.

Norman eventually installed CCTV to film the people responsible for the ‘accident waiting to happen’.

The retired engineer said: ‘We live at the bottom of a slope with the Tesco at the top, right next to a school with 1,000 pupils.

‘Some of the kids use the slope as a sort of trolley luge. I was young once and I understand the temptation but it’s getting out of hand now.

‘If you get three, four or five of the trolleys bunched together they block the path.

Norman Adams with abandoned shopping trolleys.
Norman believes the trolleys could be dangerous for other elderly people (Picture: SWNS)

‘I live in sheltered housing so there are a lot of people around here who have got mobility scooters who get trapped in and can’t move.

‘It’s only a matter of time before someone gets mown down by one of these trolleys. They don’t have brakes and they can pick up speed. The issue needs sorting before someone gets hurt.

‘The trolleys can sometimes sit there for days. I find at least one new one every day.

‘They are eventually taken away, but they usually just get taken up the slope and get ridden down again.’

Norman is also worried about his partner who has obsessive compulsive disorder and gets really stressed about the trolleys.

Independent local councillor Julie Davenport said she has been trying to fix this issue for years.

She said: ‘Trolleys being left around the streets is a real issue for residents.

‘Tesco say it has a mechanism on its trolleys to stop them leaving its property, but they are not maintained, and I believe the mechanisms can be disabled.

‘In November 2015 I put forward a motion for supermarkets to be charged for every trolley the council collect but I had to accept an amendment.’

Tesco have apologised and have urged customers to ‘return our trollies back to stores’, encouraging people to use the Trolleywise app to report stranded trolleys.

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