City of Greater Bendigo councillor Lisa Ruffell has called for Bendigo to unite around central business district traders, as unruly youth “hold our whole community to ransom”.

Cr Ruffell was one of a number of councillors to meet with traders this week following a spike in violent and antisocial behaviour in Hargreaves Mall in the past month-and-a-half.

The former mall trader said the recent increase was an extension of a problem that had festered for years.

“There’s always been an issue but this time the groups are a lot louder, [more] violent and just don’t have any respect for people,” she said.

“They don’t even respect the police, and that’s really sad to think society’s gone like this, but for the safety of the traders and the workers and the community I think it’s about time the community rallied together and said ‘there’s no tolerance for this type of behaviour’.”

Cr Ruffell said a push similar to the Believe in Bendigo campaign was needed to show community support for CBD traders besieged by badly behaved youth.

“Let people come out and say ‘we believe in our shop owners in the CBD and the mall and let’s push [the troublemakers] out’,” she said.

Cr Ruffell said her business, Ruffell Jewellers, had not been based in the mall for nearly three years, but the stories she heard from current traders were all too familiar.

“In the 26-and-a-half years that we were in the mall we saw three different generations,” she said.

“I’ve been hearing the same story for nearly 30 years and all that’s happened is the generations have changed, but this generation’s just got a bit nastier I’ll say, and we don’t want the community to be afraid of them, I don’t want to be afraid of them.”

Fellow Whipstick Ward councillor Peter Cox was also at the meeting and agreed the issue was nothing new, but encouraged discussion around the social factors that led to youth disengagement.

“It’s not an issue that’s going to be solved overnight, I think young people have been hanging around the street for ever and a day,” he said.

“I’d be particularly interested to know, is this the time of year when young people have been perhaps at school for three or four months into the year and how they’re coping with that and whether attendances have dropped off.

“They’re the issues and the discussions we need to have.”

Cr Cox said tackling root causes was the most effective way to address youth issues.

“It’s not only council, but it’s all the different agencies and organisations,” he said.

“The most important thing is that council and those agencies engage young people in the sort of activities that they would like to undertake, so that’s providing a range of educational options and looking at employment.”