Police patrols are being stepped up near to a children’s park in Biddulph after vandals have repeatedly destroyed play equipment.
Coun Jill Salt said more than £100,000 had been spent on Church Road playground over the past ten years, but that it would see no more investment until the damage stopped, which included halting plans for a pump track.
It came after freshly-laid wetpour rubber surfacing was torn up using metal poles “chopped” off a nearby fence, just hours after the new surface was put down by the contactor on behalf of Staffordshire Moorlands District Council.
Coun Salt said: “Some kids chopped metal bars off the fence and were wielding them around like weapons.
“They ripped up the wetpour tarmac before the contractor had even handed the park back over to the council.
“I don’t know how they did it, but witnesses said they were supervised and encouraged by adults. They must have used tools because you couldn’t do it with your bare hands.”
The project, which cost £20,000, was to replace flooring that had previously been “ripped up and thrown around” by youths, to move some of the existing play apparatus and install a new piece of disability accessible equipment.
Coun Salt said: “Since I’ve been a councillor, which is over ten years, we must have spent £100,000 on the constant repair of that park because of vandalism.
“We wanted to make a pump track like the ones at Kidsgrove and Newcastle, on the old dirt track that used to be up on Church Road. But we’re saying now that there’s no way we’re going to invest and get grant funding if the stuff that’s already there is going to keep being vandalised.
“We can’t keep putting tax-payers’ money down on projects that are just going to be destroyed by a minority of people.”
At a meeting of Biddulph Town Council last Tuesday, Coun Chris Brown asked PCSO Josh Hargreaves to “step-up” patrols in the area.
He said: “We’ve just repaired damage done to the base (at the park), and it’s been torn up again by vandals. Is there any chance we can get an enhanced presence up there?
“Nights are becoming darker now and we need to show that the police are on top of this and get some visibility in the area, because it’s costing us thousands at district council and people aren’t getting any use out of it.”
PCSO Hargreaves said he and his colleagues were already spending more time at Church Road Playing Fields due to reports of electric bikes being used illegally.
He said: “We can’t be there all the time, but we will make everyone aware and try to get an increased presence of marked cars.”
(Photo: Ramon Cliff / Dreamstime).
