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04 July.
Bad news. One of the Notice Boards has been broken in to sometimes yesterday. The upper lock has been forced and broken. The door left open and the content strew around.
They are supposed to and advertised to be "vandal resistant" (they cost nearly £800 each) but whenone has the chance to look closely to them they are really poor value for money.
The lock is incredibly flimsy.
The Lock is incredibly flimsy. The ring in the imagine (compared with a penny for dimensions) is actually what keeps the door closed. Even a child pulling hard enough (it doesn't require much) can force it open. This is probably what has happened and maybe to get hold of the fancy coloured draw-pins. There is not much inside that can be of use to anyone.We decide that it is not worthwhile espect the Council to repair it and although we are going to notify the park authority we are sure can manage to repair the lock. and we do.There is also some minor damage to the Wild Life Hedge, maybe incurred in retrieving a ball.Still we planted the hedge with plants donated from the London Wild Life Trust so it is still upsetting.
05 July
Very bad news indeed.
Sometimes yesterday or during the night the Notice Board has been thoroughly vandalised.
The door frame has been broken, the plexiglass smashed (Julian found pieces in the morning) and the main board has been ,presumably, kicked in so that it is only attached perilously to one of the posts.
Like all vandalism is sad and sickening.
With Julian all we can do is take off the remains of the dorr, to prevent it from crutching somebody and stare in disbelief.
if anyone has any info on who's responsible contact us and we'll pass, anonymously if so wished, it to the Warden and/or the police. If found the responsible should be made to pay for the damage in full.
Many people have donated their time and energy to make our little park a better place and the noxious misdeed of few rotten apples should not destroy it!!
Julian went along and did some restoration to the hedge.
We are also concerned that the park contractors are not cleaning, as they have promised to do the front end of the Wild Life Area and Hedge as attested by the amount or rubbish picked up by Julian the other day.
Lastly before leaving I had words with a group of young kids, around 11 or so that I saw going through the Wild Life Area outside the path.
They hardly listened and few second later a cop was looking around searching for someone!!
We definitely need to start working with the Community wardens and other law agencies, but most of all to start again giving out educational material and try to involve more people to our endeavours.
Sad day indeed!!!
With Daniel, Mehmet and Ömer, the latter two came up to give a hand, we tried to try and make the vandalised notice board a little less vulnerable.
The problem was that the board is hanging on one post only.
So that the wind or the kids can swing it back and forward and conceivably detach the board from its remaining post.
After that, if it would not be bad enough the post themselves would become inevitably vulnerable.
We though that at least putting a couple of screws on the side would help prevent it.
Of course one thing is planning to do a job, simply, smoothly and effortlessly. The reality is actually quite different. The cordless drill run out of power, the screws are too long or shorts, the holes made after much struggling do not line up, etc, etc.
None the less we managed in truly "cowboy style" to patch things up and hopefully in future can themn redo the work a little better learning from the experience.
In any case everybody were happy that in spite of much ill feeling about the whole incident, some little working together does wanders to restore moral.
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