Back in the firing line

Oh dear. Despite the hard work being put in by the Council and police etc, Nottingham finds itself back in the headlines as "the most crime-ridden place in England and Wales".

Whenever I read or hear about Nottingham in these terms, I wince. I'm regularly back there, and I'll always retain a fondness for the city. Statistics aside, it didn't strike me as being any more "dangerous" than other places, even though I lived for six years in an area widely considered one of the dodgiest in the city.

Nottingham suffers - unjustly, I think - from a real perception problem, and this sort of thing isn't going to do it any favours.