Chavs Ruining Snowdon Experience for Decent Folks

The newly built £8.4m Snowdon summit cafe has become a hang-out for gangs of anti-social teenagers who ruin the summit experience on Wales' highest mountain.

That is the conclusion of a damning report commisioned by the Snowdonia National Park Authority on behalf of the Ramblers Association.

The state of the art weatherproof building, opened this year by First Secretary Rhodri Morgan, was commisioned after Prince Charles described the previous building as the "highest slum in Wales." The steel framed building, built with steel, granite, slate and Welsh oak, was heralded as an engineering masterpiece and an eye-catching oasis for weary walkers seeking rest and refreshments after climbing the 3,560ft peak.

But feedback from visitors paints a different picture, as Geraldine Frisk of the Ramblers Association explained. "Foul-mouthed teenage chavs seem to have colonised the summit since the erection of the new cafe. They hang around in gangs, spitting and swearing. It is very intimidating."

A Hafod Eryri (the cafe's name) worker, who was afraid of giving his name for fear of reprisals, said that walking the short distance from the entrance to path at the end of a day's shift was like "running a gauntlet of hate."

"These youths seem to be attracted by the sheltered area outside the building, the steps from the cafe to the summit - which is a magnet for the skateboarders among them - and the opportunity to harass and harangue strangers for no apparent reason. There was about thirty of them here last week, drinking and playing loud music from boomboxes and shit. They are anti-social and a serious menace. Most of them have ASBOs on their baseboll-capped asses."

Snowdonia National Park spokesman Alain Trebuchet said they had tried luring the youths away by imitating the mating call of hip-hop starDizzee Rascal, but the strategy didn't quite go to plan.

"They became quite animated and started breakdancing on the cliff edge, so obviously we had to change tactics. Playing loud Country & Western music to drive them away looked promising at first, but a walker who had come here to forget about his marriage break-up threw himself off the edge and plummeted 1,000 feet to his death. So that plan was also jetisoned."

Local councillor Cadwaladr Jones said the police helicopter was called up one day in summer, only to be pelted with stones and bottles and forced to retreat to the relative safety of nearby Grib Goch ridge. He added that the Park Authority should never have built the new cafe in the first place.

"Slum or not, we didn't have this problem with the old building. The worst we had was flocks of marauding seagulls, which could be shot. You can't shoot these fuckers, which is scandalous."

Not only can the "yobs" become violent, said Mr Jones, but they are a serious health and safety hazard. "A lady from Llandudno was knocked over by a skateboarder only the other day, and a family of four had a narrow escape when they slipped on all the phlegm on the steps by the cliff's edge over there."

But Llaid Gwynedd councillor Helen Clarke-Smythe placed the blame firmly with the Plaid Cymru-led Gwynedd Council. "These feral children would not be here if the council had not closed the public toilets in nearby villages."

Plaid Cymru spokesperson Ongwyn ap Edno responded by blaming the parents.