It appears that the Nottingham shooting is approximately 100 metres away from where I used to live. My friends have been bouncing emails around about it all morning.

Lenton’s not a great part of town – burglaries are pretty much mandatory there (high student population, insecure housing), but there are worse areas. The press have of course already christened Nottingham “Gun City” since the murders of Marian Bates and Danielle Beccan, and I’ll agree that there does seem to be something of a localised gun problem. However, this is common to most big cities, and if I recall correctly the overall level of gun crime in Nottingham lags behind Luton, Blackpool and many others (I may look up a source for this later). I really do believe (hope?) that this is an isolated and tragic incident, and not indicative of “the state of the city”.

I feel safe in Nottingham. Yes, I live in quite a pleasant area in a secure building, but I’ve also spent my time in the “rougher” areas. Like most places, you know where to go, you know how to avoid trouble, and most of the time there’s absolutely no problem.

I just hope the press don’t set the dogs on the city I call home.

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