CCTV could be installed as part of a pilot project in a bid to tackle ongoing anti-social behaviour and vandalism in play parks, with repair costs currently eating up a huge chunk of ABC Council’s allocated budget.
And Alderman Stephen Moutray believes that Lurgan Park is the prime location for such recording to be trialled.
A report to ABC Council’s environment committee confirmed that the maintenance budget over the course of the past five years has risen from £50,000 to £65,000.
And, of this, it is estimated that around £26,000 is being used to repair vandalism right across the borough.
Alderman Moutray said this sum in itself was not enough to be investing in maintaining play parks.
Further, he feels council should be increasing efforts to reclaim the play parks for the children for whom they are intended.
The DUP representative, speaking at the environment committee on Tuesday night, said: “We have 140 playgrounds across this borough and, thankfully, probably the vast majority of them are not impacted by vandalism, but there are definitely some that are impacted on an ongoing basis.
“I make no apology for referring to Lurgan Park, where we invested a few years ago a large sum of money in providing a new play park, but one that sadly cannot be accessed fully because of anti-social behaviour.”
He thanked council for recently removing graffiti there and went on to question the ‘kitty’ set aside for the upkeep of these parks.
“Whenever I look through the report and I see that the annual maintenance for play parks comes to £65,000 and, with 140 playgrounds, that works out at £464 on average for every play park. And when I look at some of the other spends in this council, like the facility across the road (South Lakes Leisure Centre), well above £2 million, the Market Place Theatre, over £1 million, I think we’re being short-changed in our play parks.
“It’s something that I would like the senior management team to go back and look at. I don’t want to spend money in our play parks for the sake of spending money.
“We need something that’s going to be targeted to try and win our play parks back for the children that they were designed for, not the teenagers who are coming in in the evenings.
“While I appreciate the report and the works done, I would like officers to drill down and bring us back more detail. What play parks are the problem? What can we do there? Because I see multi-agency responses, but the people that I talk to are the parents of the children who want to play in the play parks, and there’s nobody on the ground. There aren’t police. There aren’t community wardens.
“So the people end up leaving the good facility that we have provided and it’s left in the hands of groups of teenagers who want to hang out there.”
Alderman Moutray asked for a “more detailed report” to be brought back and, while not “advocating CCTV across this borough”, he suggested a pilot programme in “problem areas”, firmly of the belief that Lurgan Park was the best location at the current time.
Party colleague, Councillor Peter Haire, was in full agreement.
He said: “Anti-social behaviour in Lurgan Park has been really bad. September, I have been there four times.
“I’ve been screaming for it to get CCTV cameras in the park. They’re wrecking our park. They’re wrecking our benches. They’re putting graffiti all over it and people are afraid to go into it.
“I spent time with our wardens around the park to try and do it. I’ve spent time with the police as well. We need to do something about it.
“People are afraid to go into our park because of it. Wee boys are wrecking and ruining it.”
Councillor Haire said on a recent Sunday fireworks were being let off in the children’s play area within Lurgan Park.
And he warned: “Somebody is going to get really hurt here and we need to do something about it.”
Councillor Haire said a pilot project should be looked at in relation to CCTV, adding: “Lurgan Park is ideal for it because I’m getting it all the time, people phoning up, saying ‘I’m not bringing my child there because of it’.”
Thanking staff for their fast response in graffiti removal, he implored: “Please, we need to get on top of this here and and make our park safe again.”
Alderman Paul Greenfield also expressed his view that the amount set aside was not sufficient.
And he felt that some form of ‘temporary’ equipment should be employed to specific problematic areas.
“It does seem to be very much short-changed for what we want to do with our parks,” said Alderman Greenfield. “We spend an awful lot of money investing in our play strategy and our parks and we’re thankfully pushing on with more new ones.
“I was wanting to question the same thing, which are the parks that are key pinpoint areas? I know that probably changes over time, but I think we should be looking at something, even a temporary type of recording or CCTV to see if it does make a difference in the different areas, because then we would know what way to invest our money, what we do.
“Sometimes the vandalism isn’t always smashing and wrecking the things, but it’s the state they leave the park in – glass smashed in it, dirt all over slides, stuff like that.”
Claire Duddy, head of climate, parks and sustainability, assured the suggestions would be taken on board and promised to ‘link in’ with colleagues in the capital and estates teams.
“I’m happy to go away and produce an options paper looking at options for CCTV,” added the officer.
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