Ineffectual

The other evening I went with Mum to a public meeting about the playing field which is across the road from my Mum's house.  The meeting was ostensibly about improvements to the sports and playground facilities on the site and was being held by the local council.  However, the playing field has long been a meeting place for all sorts of disaffected and badly-behaved 'yoof' who seem to converge on it from far and wide.  They congregate on the field in all winds and weathers and cause all sorts of trouble and grief to those particularly unfortunate residents who back directly on to the field.

Even in my day (many many years ago now) the playing field attracted all sorts of dubious sorts and bad behaviour, although nothing on the scale that occurs there nowadays.  Apparently the screaming and shouting that comes from there late at night is so bad that many local residents have feared someone is being murdered and indeed someone was badly stabbed there a year or two ago.  The graffiti on the childrens' play area is nothing short of obscene and most of the play equipment is very badly defaced or damaged as are the tennis courts - now sans net and surrounding chain-link wire, and strewn with broken bits of glass.  The perpetrators seem to be equipped with crowbars, bolt cutters, screwdrivers and knives judging by the serious damage they wreak on anything and everything that's situated on the playing field.

So, as expected by all in the neighbourhood, the council meeting on Monday evening ended up having very little to do with the proposed improvements as a whole lot of irate and fed-up local people mainly wanted to quiz the man from the council about what was being proposed to make the playing field a safer and less troublesome area.  The short answer was absolutely b*gger all!!  Despite the fact that the council will be spending £70,000 on updating the facilities they didn't want to hear anything about the likelihood that within a month or so the 'yoof' of the area will have ripped most of the improvements to shreds, stolen what isn't actually nailed down and destroyed or defaced what is left.  Apparently £2,000 per year on a security patrol (seems uber cheap to me) would be a cost too far for the council to try and ensure that the area was kept 'yoof'-free in the evenings!! 

Talk about ineffectual - the bloke from the council had as much personality as a wet dish rag and was about as much use as a chocolate tea pot.  And these sorts of people are running our local councils and spending our taxes - scary!!  Personally I think they should give the £70,000 back to central government and put it towards the billions of deficit we currently have in the UK rather than spend it on new facilities which will last no time at all once the charming local 'yoof' get their hands on it.

Comments

[ilona]

We have got a playing field like that, maybe not quite as vandalised as yours, but we have to keep spending money on repairs. I think they should make the parents pay for the damage that their little, and big, horrors create.

[sharie]

Local councils seem to be money wasting idiots. They pay no attention to locals and just follow their own agenda.
35,000 signed a petition to keep our local library open but it was ignored - no doubt the plot will get built on in the near future and the money used to fund the councils bar.

Sorry you had a frustrated time trying to get things sorted. Hope your Mum took it easy?

[Michelle H.]

Oh your poor Mom! I'd hate to have to live with that! You know the people in charge would do something about it if THEY lived across the road from it.
Blessings!