Walking home from a good night with friends on to School Road in Crookes tonight I was shocked to find three fires burning in the street. A Wheely bin well ablaze, a pile of planks (probably from one of the many skips) piled against a house front door on fire and a skip contents taking hold.

Luckily several other locals heading home had also noticed it and tackled the smaller fires with buckets of water whilst the fire brigade came to handle the wheely bin.

As the fire brigade were in attendance a car pulled up to tell them there was another fire near the post office on crookes road.

There were some lads near the wheely bin fire who we spoke to but turned out to be students who had pulled the bin (already alight) away from a house.

The police arrived, stopped briefly to get a grip of the situation and promptly sped off in search of the offenders....

Right now I know I'm not going to get much sleep tonight knowing these idiots are wandering around my neighbourhood setting fire to wheely bins and the like.

We spotted these fires because we happened to be going home at this time of night. i dread to think what the consequences could have been if these fires had been started an hour later when the streets are desserted and the first you'd know is the smoke alarm going off.........

Should be treated as attempted murder in my opinion.

I wonder which police phone line we should have used? The 'minor incident' one (graffiti, unsociable behaviour) or 999, a larger incident such as arson?

I suspect the police and authorities whould have us believe the incidents described above were minor.

They will certainly be treated as such should someone ever be prosecuted - unlikely methinks.

I live round the corner and completely missed this last night!

Given the wearabouts of the fires, I reckon it's probably one of those chavvy kids who always sit outside that house just down from the Post Office, constantly drinking cider, smoking weed and throwing rubbish in the street.