Five Dock Park

Poor old Five Dock Park really takes a beating.  I wrote to Council last and asked if they have established a "friends of the park" group yet for this park.  (It's part of the Council playground strategy to setup a "friends" program.  This park really needs one.

The Early Childhood centre had graffiti removed from this spot recently, and it has returned once more.  It's like mould in the bathroom - very hard to keep under control.

There are plenty of benches throughout the park, and some of them look like this.  (By the way, that red circle in the top right corner is a vandalised Energy Australia substation, mentioned in the next blog).

Another vandalised bench.  Note that most of the graffiti has been applied with a marker pen, rather than spray paint.  This is why I don't believe that banning spray paint will have much effect.  If you ask me, marker pens are the precursor to moving onto spray paint.  Young kids (12 and up) can easily buy a marker pen from a newsagency and start a life of vandalism, before graduating some years later to spray paint.  

A very rusted ventilation pipe.  I reported this to Sydney Water last month, and haven't seen any action yet.

The bottom of the ventilation pipe is almost non-existant.  If it wasn't for the supporting struts, this would have toppled long ago.

Many of the lamp posts have been defaced, again with a marker pen rather than spray paint.  Note that vandals prefer a marker pen with a fat nib - perhaps an Artline 100 or 130 series.  In my humble opinion, I'd start by banning fat marker pens.

Someone has trashed this rubbish bin.

Some good news though - this sign has been thoroughly cleaned by Council.  The Council anti-graffiti team seems to be the most thorough when it comes to removing graffiti - they really do a good job.  The RTA on the other hand tend to do a really sloppy, slap-dash job when it comes to cleaning signage.  

The gate to the playground has been broken - again.  I'll have to include that in my report to Council on Monday.  This is the second time that this has been snapped off.  I doubt that a small child did this - by the look of the rest of the park, it appears that some teenagers have had a wild time here recently, trashing trees and bins and breaking anything they can.  

When I went to the playground this morning, there were a number of other families there, playing with their kids.  All the adults had noticed this damage - but why, as usual, am I the only one to report it?

I really must remember to get some flyers printed and start handing them out to parents when I see things like this.