Opinion : Frogmoor ‘chemical murder’ marks new low for crime in High Wycombe

For many years my good self has been concerned about the rising levels of crime in Wycombe.

As the years have passed the crimes committed in the town have become more and more repugnant. But a new low was reached this month when a woman sitting on a bench in Frogmoor on a Saturday afternoon was covered in an unknown chemical leading to her death.

From what my good self can understand in the moments leading up to the tragic events an altercation broke out between a group of men leading to a bottle being kicked during the fight and the woman being covered in a liquid that resulted in her suffering horrific burns.

What a despicable crime?

What a hideous thing to happen in the ‘historic market town of High Wycombe’?

What has our town become?

The crime may be shocking but to my good self it’s not surprising. Things have been going down hill in Wycombe for years and something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. The question is what will come next?

Just look at Frogmoor itself. Once known as the ‘Frogmoor Gardens’ that part of town has been let go. Fast food restaurants, public houses and other dens of iniquity have been allowed to spring up in the area.

A broken fountain, large expanse of bland concrete pavement and a pathetic statue are the only features the area has to offer. Let’s face it the abandonment of Frogmoor has turned it into a gangsters rendezvous spot.

Once beautiful butterflies and bees flew around the lovely flowers on Frogmoor now it’s a meeting place for scum bags, delinquents and hoodlums looking for trouble.

In fact that part of town is so bad that even the tramps avoid it, after all when did you last see a tramp in Frogmoor? Even my good self rarely ventures around there these days indeed its just not a nice place to be, go or walk through.

The other day the editor of Wycombe Today asked me to go to Frogmoor one lunchtime and take a picture of the area. Yours truly was shocked at the sort of people there, indeed I felt most unsafe. The picture was taken and your humble servant left as quickly as possible.

While tens of millions of pounds were spent a few years ago rejuvenating the Newlands area poor old Frogmoor was neglected. Now the area is linked with a murder inquiry.

Isn’t it about time the powers that be sorted Frogmoor with some proper regeneration measures? Forget the fancy taxi bays and other daft improvement schemes we have seen recently, just put the area back to how it used to be in the 1930’s with a narrow road going around a central island comprising a fountain, gardens and benches.

Sadly I fear it’s too much to ask indeed look as the fiasco of the failed fountain on Frogmoor. What hope is there if the great and good can manage to bungle the installation of a fountain when all they had to do was find a reputable fountain installation contractor and pay them?

In our town in recent years people have been murdered and maimed by being stabbed, shot with guns and now killed with chemicals.

It worries me what wicked crime will come next in Wycombe? All that remains is for a nuclear or radioactive substance to be used in a murder and we will have seen the ‘full house’ of killing methods used in the town.

Nothing shocks me any more when it comes to crime in Wycombe. Just look what our town has become….

What do you think?

My blogs are published every Tuesday and Friday evening around 8.00pm here on the WycombeToday.com website.

You can also follow me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ivor.wycombe or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Ivor_Wycombe.