Beech Road Park

Since the park got a new lease of life it’s just being the teenagers that get to use it.  Sorry I forgot, trash it with their condoms, larger/ beer glass bottles and junk.  Why do they get to use it, even if the play equipment is not for their age, and us with little ones can’t use it.  Everytime you complain about the state of the park, a cleaner is send to tidy up the park.  We need better action to be taken about this problem.  One thing I can think of is to put lights in the park and to be switch on the same time as the street lights in the evening.  Why does the teenagers get the upper hand?  Why do they get away with spoiling everyone else’s fun?

It would be beneficial if a friends of the park group was active and encouraging greater use for all age groups. It is not simply teenagers who use the park and cause chaos. There are younger children in the daytime with young teenagers playing football into the early evening.
The problem arises later in the evening and at night with older children. Unfortunately due to access issues the park cannot be locked. Additional lighting will have an unsociable impact to neighbouring properties.

Laura,  I completely agree.  Every time I walk through the park I am baffled at these kids’ sheer stupidity.  Given that they appear to be the only ones who regularly use the park, why do they mindlessly spoil their own environment by discarding their rubbish on the ground, just feet (and sometimes inches) away from the bins?  I don’t believe that they can really enjoy sitting in an area surrounded by their own garbage.  But who wants the job of telling them to pick up after themselves?  Can you imagine the verbal abuse you’d be opening yourself up to?  It wouldn’t matter if you said you were part of a Friends of the Park Group.  If these teenagers have no respect for community spaces, they certainly would have no respect for any adult requesting that they behave with a bit of consideration for others.

I just spoke to the council.  Their reaction is: ‘O we know about the situation in the park’.  I told them people in the community know who the kids are.  The council told me unless someone comes forward and actually say who did it nothings going to be done about it.  Claire I agree with you, if we tell them of we get verbally abuse.  The kids are very intimidated when they are in the park and you want to use it.  The other bad thing is, most of the kids trashing the park is not even from this estate.  I want them to go and trash their own park near the own house.  Stop doing it to our park!  Don’t get me started about the role of the police in this situation.