A petition has been launched to ban "nuisance'' schoolchildren from the central bus station in Hamilton.

Charles Spanswick, who claims to be a community activist, is visiting businesses asking for support in his bid to keep out youngsters, who, he claims, intimidate other passengers and leave graffiti, litter and vandalism in their wake.

Last week, Mr. Spanswick, 54, contacted the Corporation of Hamilton to inform officers of his gripe and said when the petition is complete he would be handing it to Premier Jennifer Smith.

"I am very concerned about the state of the bus terminal in Hamilton, not to mention other bus lay-bys around the Island, and, without doubt, I think school pupils are to blame for it,'' said Mr. Spanswick.

"The children are a nuisance and there is absolutely no need for them to be there at all. Schools could have buses pick the children up outside of their premises and take them directly to where they need to go. There should be no need for them to come into Hamilton at all.

"They hang about in gangs, which intimidates people, and they are rude. They should simply be banned from being there at all.'' Mr. Spanswick also suggested that metal gates be installed at the bus depot, which only allowed people wanting to use the buses to go through.

But his suggestion has been labelled unreasonable by Corporation of Hamilton Secretary Roger Sherratt.

Mr. Sherratt admitted there had been some problems with pupils hanging around the central bus depot -- adding that the Corporation was working with Police to solve them -- but said erecting barriers would have an adverse affect.

Mr. Sherratt said: Ideally what I think everybody would like to see is buses going to the schools to pick up the students and then taking them directly home. But we understand from studies carried out that that is not practical.

We have students that need to go off in every direction and we can't afford to have buses go off in every direction.'' He noted that other crime prevention measures had been taken into consideration and were in use, such as CCTV at the depot, the removal of the cycle bays where children used to sit and additional Police patrols.

But he added: "We still do have a problem and we are continuing to look at it. Indeed, I got a call just yesterday saying two boys had been arrested for drinking in that area.

"But I can assure people it is something we are aware of. We are also talking about how we can upgrade the bus terminal's appearance.'' CedarBridge Academy Principal Kalmar Richards said she and her staff regularly informed pupils of the standards they expected from them outside of the school.

But she agreed with Mr. Sherratt, saying that providing enough buses to take all of her 1,000 pupils home at night would not be possible.

She added: "We do have buses that actually come to the school and then head east and west, but we also have buses that go into Hamilton, where pupils can get other buses to take them to their respective areas.

"The extent to which our pupils are spread out is great, and we would not be able to cover all areas.'' But she said as far as she could recall, since she took over as Principal last September, she had not received any complaints about the behaviour of students at the central terminal.

And besides, she added, public transport was provided to enable members of the public to get around.

"That would include students,'' she added. "It's possibly unrealistic to expect students not to use the main terminal. We want students to get home safely and in a reasonable time.'' A Police spokeswoman said they had been receiving complaints about youngsters at the bus terminal for some time and efforts had been made to quell the problem.

She added: "We put in extra patrols around that area, but, because of the manpower shortage, we have not been able to do that as much as we would like.

"But our efforts are continuing and, hopefully, when we get the extra officers that are being recruited we will be able to do it more.'' People can sign Mr. Spanswick's petition at Chatham House on Burnaby Street; at The Deli, Jeans Plus and A&J Sports in the Washington Mall; and at the General Post Office, Cafe m Acoreana and Sampson's Ladies and Gents Tailoring on Church Street.

EDUCATION ED