RESIDENTS of two Northwich streets plagued by nuisance youths from a nearby park have been told their calls for a partition may take some to time to resolve.

More than half of the residents of Verdin Street and James Street have signed a petition for a fence or wall to block access through to the park at the bottom of their roads to stop youths hanging out around their homes.

Town council chief executive Steve Sharman said the cost of erecting a boundary fence could be £1,000 but said the matter was complicated by the question of who is responsible for the land.

He met Vale Royal Borough Council's playground leader on Wednesday to discuss the issue and afterwards said: 'The developer who built 30 houses at the site, under what is called a Section 106 Agreement, had to provide an amenity area.

'While working on the development the developer put up a substantial wooden boundary fence but when it had finished it removed all the equipment from the site and took down the fence.

'When we complained the developer said the back of the houses would act as the boundary. It seems it never handed over the land to the borough and so neither the borough council nor the town council owns this piece of land.

'We now need to find out who owns the land and what they are proposing to do with it and I have notified residents of this.'