Visitors to Kitchener Gardens face overflowing bins, graffiti and late-night drinking
PARENTS are concerned that Kitchener Gardens has been plagued with litter, graffiti and dogs roaming around the fenced off children’s play area.
“It’s hard not to notice the rubbish and the graffiti, as much as you try and turn a blind eye to it as part of the furniture, it is definitely there,” said Gareth Middleton, who regularly takes his son to the park, next to Leckwith Road.
“It does get cleared up; it is not the same stuff that piles up for months on end.
“You end up having to turn a blind eye to it, you pretend it’s not there and direct children away from it.”
A council spokesperson said: “The council is aware of a recent increase in issues at Kitchener Gardens. Our Urban Ranger team is keeping a close eye on the situation and ensuring that litter and other issues such as graffiti are reported to the relevant teams to be dealt with as quickly as possible.”
Anatolie Vasileniuc, who is from Ukraine but now lives across from Kitchener Gardens with his two children, blames the confusing signs for some of these issues.
“It shows on the map the areas where the dogs can go, but it is not separate from the play area.
“One man would come in and open the gate and leave his dog in the children’s play area.
“The dogs are going everywhere but it does not say that it isn’t allowed. My daughter had bad experiences with dogs in Ukraine, so she is very scared of them.”
On Friends of Kitchener Gardens Facebook group, Lawrence Toms complains of “two dead animals – a rat and a seagull – rotting in the children’s play area. There are three large piles of faeces, one distinctly human, in the children’s play area”.
As well as better fencing of the children’s area, Mr Vasileniuc hopes for better security around the park as a whole.
“Sometimes adults and teenagers break in and sit here at night drinking. They might come back from a football match and sit and drink until 12 or one o’clock.”
The behaviour affects the people visiting the park in the day.
“It does spoil it, it is a nice little park, but if there are any teenagers here, we go straight home,” said Kath Jones, who tries to take her daughter to the park twice a week.
“One day the bin was full of vodka bottles, I always look for things like syringes and there is always a lot of glass here.”
A council spokesperson said: ““Plans are in place to carry out refurbishments to the play area later this year. This will include upgrades to the safety surfaces and equipment in the toddler and junior area.
“Experience from other play areas in the city shows that improvements of this kind encourages better treatment of the facilities and can resolve the type of issues currently being reported.”
- You can report issues using the Cardiff Gov app.
