Thursday 5 June 2008

Improving Avenham Park

Greg Smith wrote this letter to his local councillors, and asked for it to be included in this blog:

I walked through Avenham park this morning and found it disgusting with all the bins overflowing and litter and discarded picnics strewn all over the hillside. My dog enjoyed the experience as a compulsive scavenger though it took ages to bring him back on the lead.

I'm afraid to say this is a frequent occurence whenever there is a warm weekend and people go out to enjoy the park and given that Avenham and Miller parks are treasured by residents and being promoted by the city as a tourist attraction it is just not good enough.

In my view most of the blame lies with the members of the public who fail to dispose of their litter properly, although I suspect that the devastation this Sunday morning has been compounded by the vandalism of the wandering drunken hordes who are encouraged to get wasted in the city centre each weekend.

However I would suggest there are a couple of things the council could do to improve matters.

First the size and number of bins provided is insufficient to meet demand at peak times such as a sunny weekend. Could the council not arrange to have a temporary commercial size bin or two delivered and collected from the park whenever the weather forecast suggests there is likely to be crowds sunbathing and picnicing.

Secondly if park rangers were on duty on such days until sunset at least, and had powers to impose on the spot fines for litter louts, many people would be deterred from this anti social behaviour. It might also be a good idea to extend the ban on consuming alcohol in the streets to the park, and to make it a criminal offence for publicans and off licenses to sell alcohol to people who are evidently inebriated might also help.

I'd be glad if you could look into this problem to see if my suggestions or other solutions to this horrible problem might work.


Greg Smith
Broadgate


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