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PARK
LIFE During
March 2013, I was working on secondment from my usual place of work at
the Parks Department of the local Council. I always find it so nice to
see how other sections of the local authority operate and what tasks
they undertake. Obviously not having any gardening qualifications or
specialised equipment training, I was given some of the more mundane but
vital tasks that need carrying out on a daily basis. I
didn’t mind in any way partaking of litter picking and bin emptying,
it is a vital job and somebody has to do it. Doing that kind of work
really gives one an understanding of how ‘park life’ operates. It
seemed to me that the guys who worked in the park did their best to make
it a pleasant family place to visit, whilst many members of the general
public did as much as possible to turn it into a filthy tip.
The main entrance seen from inside the park They
would just drop litter anywhere, instead of depositing it in the
plentiful supply of bins. It is truly amazing just how much litter has
to be picked each day. There was plenty enough of it during a very cold
and dismal March, it evidently becomes an absolute avalanche during the
summer months when everybody and their brother wants to enjoy a bit of
‘park life’. I was also astounded by the amount of beer cans and
vodka bottles to be picked up. What is the possible attraction of going
to a freezing cold and windswept park in order to consume alcohol? Toxocara In
addition to the litter problem, far too many irresponsible and uncaring
dog owners just seem to let their animals foul wherever they want, with
no intention of clearing the filthy mess up. In fact, I find that many
dog owners simply treat public parks as no more than canine toilets and
couldn’t care less that children playing in the park could come into
contact with the faeces, which has the potential to cause blindness
through the roundworm parasite Toxocara. Children are more at risk of
this very unpleasant disease than adults, as they may play in infected
dirt or sand and then rub their eyes or swallow the parasite.
The
parasite burrows into the eyes causing tumours or detached retina and
consequential blindness. The parasite can also enter the bloodstream and
infect internal organs. Toxocara eggs are deposited with faeces and 2 -
3 weeks later the eggs "embryonate" thereby becoming
infectious. The soil in many parks and play areas is contaminated with
Toxocara eggs as they are resistant to disinfectants and to the frost,
and can be viable for up to 10 years. This is a serious problem; In
Great Britain, 24% of soil samples taken from public parks contained the
eggs. To
my mind, the problem of fouling by uncaring dog owners is an issue that
is underplayed and not treated as seriously as it should be. Rather than
a fine for fouling, these people should be facing a criminal charge of
Attempted Grievous Bodily Harm, as they are knowingly attempting to
inflict harm upon another person, or more specifically, a child. I
firmly believe that only significant jail time will bring about a change
of attitude amongst antisocial dog owners. Vandalism Another
aspect of ‘park life’ is the scourge of vandalism. This usually
tends to take place at night when the park is officially closed, or when
the local state schools tip out and a certain brand of so-called
‘bored teenagers’ inflict a bit of wanton destruction, before they
go home to puff skunk, drink cheap cider and spend all night on their
PlayStations. The Council provide park benches to allow people to sit and enjoy the ambiance and atmosphere of the park, especially around the lakes where many birds congregate. At the park where I was working, they even had some amazingly coloured Egyptian geese. Unfortunately these benches are all too often the target for mindless vandalism. They get etched with badly spelt graffiti or damaged in other ways. Slats are broken or ripped off and in the end, the bench becomes unusable and the park takes on a far less pleasant and menacing feel.
A neglected and vandalized bench in the park It
also has to be said that Councils are often not maintaining park
infrastructure as they should. In the current climate of cuts in public
spending, the Parks Department are seen as a soft target and are the
first to be starved of funding. It costs around £400 to replace a
damaged wooden bench, plus the costs of fitting, and the money is simply
not there. Even painting older benches with wood preserver is not
happening and that to me is short sighted in the extreme. One instance of vandalism that really infuriated me occurred in the memorial garden that sits within the park. This area commemorates the dead of both WW1 and WW2 and is a beautifully designed haven away from the madding crowd. In that garden were originally three benches made from the interior timber taken out of HMS Dido, when it was broken up at the end of its service life.
The
Memorial Garden in the park HMS
Dido was launched on 18th July 1939 and commissioned on 30th September
1940. She saw action all through WW2 and survived it intact. In 1942
though she received major bomb damage, this was repaired and she was
able to continue operations in the Eastern Mediterranean. In
1953 she took part in the Fleet Review to celebrate the Coronation of
Queen Elizabeth II, where she was Flag ship of the Reserve Fleet. She
was decommissioned and scrapped in 1957.
HMS Dido The memorial garden originally contained three benches as previously mentioned, but when I was there, only one bench remained. The other two had been vandalised and had to be replaced. The last remaining bench was chained in place to prevent its removal but was in a rather sorry condition. I resolved to renovate that bench prior to my time at the park expiring, to ensure that it enjoyed a few more years of serviceable life. In a way it was my small way of paying homage to the fallen the memorial garden had been built to honour and remember. Despite the appalling weather, I was able to complete this self-appointed task, and it did feel good to have done something worthwhile and constructive.
The HMS Dido bench prior to renovation
The HMS Dido bench after renovation - still with 'wet paint' notice attached I
just cannot get into the minds of people who would vandalise a memorial
garden to the fallen of those appalling global conflicts. These were
ordinary working people, fighting a war to give them the freedoms they
enjoy today. It does make my blood boil to see it happening. Another
example of the kind of vandalism that occurs in the parks these days was
that of a litter bin, ripped out of the ground and tossed into the lake.
Why on earth do something as mindless as that? What pleasure and
entertainment can be gained by such wilful damage? On a cold winter’s
night, surely these brainless cretins have something better to do at
home? Friends Groups Many
parks have friends groups. These are groups of volunteers who have a
special interest in a particular park, and have some semi-official
status working in conjunction with the local Council to help maintain
the park. Unfortunately, although they mean well, these groups can be
stuffed with insufferable busybodies, usually retired and middle class
who can become the bane of the park staff. Quite
often they do love to relate how many local Councillors they know and
how they can get this and that done and in the process, create more work
for the park staff that are already seriously undermanned, under-paid,
under-funded, under-resourced and stretched to the very limit using
knackered old tools and equipment. I am sure that many of these friends
would be out trainspotting or butterfly collecting if they were not
involved in their local park. The Future I
am genuinely concerned for the future of our local parks. As this
seemingly endless recession, depression, call it what you like goes on
and on, it is sure to lead to further cuts in the Parks Department of
local Councils. More parks will end up being unstaffed and only visited
by flying teams of mobile park workers. That has implications for safety
as well as the appearance of our valuable public recreational areas. We
are in danger of destroying these open spaces, bequeathed to us by our
Victorian forebears who knew full well the social value of them. In a
vicious irony, the neglected, unloved look of parks will then allow
Councils to use it as an excuse to propose building on some of them. The present government is about to relax planning laws and this is already putting green belt land in danger of development. If green belt land is built upon, then parkland will be sure to follow, especially in urban areas that have a lot of it. It is claimed by many that this need to build hundreds of thousands of new dwellings has been brought about by the immigration policies of governments since 1997, and the fact that British immigration policy is now dictated by the European Parliament, rather than British government in Westminster. There is it must be said, more than a grain of truth in that sentiment.
Our
vital open spaces are under real threat from development A
huge growth in population will demand accommodation be made available,
that is simply common sense. It is a demand that cannot be met from our
current housing stock. That being the case, it would not be ridiculous
to claim that we could see the decimation of our green belt land through
urban development, and the erection of housing on some of our urban
parks. I
for one do not wish to see our parks, left to us by past generations to
preserve for future generations, disappear under concrete to house a
population that is growing out of all concept of managed sustainability.
Make no mistake; our green open public spaces will be in real danger
from the pressures of over-population during the
coming decades. ©Copyright - James of Glencarr |
