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Silla Carron: ‘By coming together and working together things can change’ |
TV star Silla urges estate to fight back
Cameras follow campaigner as she shows tenants how to combat anti-social behaviour
SHE’S been something of a local celebrity for years, known for taking on the bullies who plagued her Camden Town estate – and winning.
Now, Silla Carron, 59, from the Clarence Way estate, is hoping to work her magic in other areas hit by anti-social behaviour.
In a documentary for BBC1 – due to hit television screens at the end of the month – Ms Carron helps residents on the troubled Wolseley Road estate in Plymouth.
The camera follows her as she tries to motivate residents who despair at crime levels and how their gardens are used as a “rubbish dump”.
Ms Carron said: “The fact that I live on benefits and in a council estate does not mean I deserve less – and that’s why I’m not daunted about going on TV.”
In the documentary, The Estate We’re In, filmed over a year, Ms Carron inspires residents to help with gardening. She challenges their doubts about the possibility of turning things around on an estate with a notorious reputation locally.
Ms Carron – described in the show’s publicity as a “supergran” – added: “I want other people to know they’re not the only ones going through the problems in their area. By coming together and working together things can change.
“We kicked some council arse down there,” said Ms Carron, who has recently been battling Crohn’s disease. “They get paid to work. I get fed up of people sitting on their arse. They should get off it and do the work they’re paid to do. There was one councillor who definitely didn’t like me.”
In one episode, after a flood, Ms Carron throws a party for residents to “keep them united” and later gets all the tenants to join in giving the estate a new lick of paint.
In another, she tackles, in typically forthright manner, the problems caused by smells from a nearby sewage works.
Closer to home, she has squared up to drug addicts in Camden Town and badgered the council and police into making her estate safer.
Ms Carron has had audiences with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and some of the country’s most senior politicians. The Daily Mirror celebrated her work by giving her a gong in its prestigious Pride of Britain awards last year – but the children of Clarence Way may be more impressed by her move to have a crazy golf course installed on the once-blighted estate.
* The five-part documentary, The Estate We’re In, will be screened on BBC1 at 9am on weekdays from March 31 |
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