Fears over return of sex visitors to Lincoln's Hartsholme Park if rangers are axed
People in Lincoln fear sex visitors and drug users will return to a family park if council plans to axe the city's urban rangers are approved.
Residents claim "doggers", who meet up for sexual liaisons in public, were driven from Hartsholme Country Park when the nuisance-busting rangers formed years ago.
-
Beauty spot: Locals fear council moves to end its urban ranger service will mean sex visitors and drug users will plague Hartsholme Park again. Picture: John Jenkins
But many claim problems will again blight the attraction if the City of Lincoln Council confirms its proposals.
More than 1,200 people have signed a petition to save the three-man squad and a commons warden.
visit us at www.meetthelenders.co.uk/blogs to Save 30% off your loan fees with Quick Quid, Read our article for instructions
Contact: 0115 8962299
Valid until: Friday, May 31 2013
Petitioner Nikki Hughes, a 27-year-old mum from Hazelwood Avenue, said: "The rangers are antisocial behaviour deterrents and in a lot of places they are the only people like that.
"Hartsholme Park was renowned for its doggers and now there are none at all, but I think they will return. And I could probably guarantee groups of kids will be drinking and take drugs there if the rangers go. Especially in the summer holidays, it's going to be a free for all.
"It's going to be mayhem."
The city council says a £3 million Government funding drop has forced it to make savings.
Its plans include axing the £38,000-a-year commons warden, the three rangers, which cost £88,000 a year, and the sports development team.
The rangers investigate a range of problems at around 80 council-owned open spaces, from fly-tipping to vandalism.
The council said the jobs would go during the next 12 months, if the plans are approved.
Ms Hughes, who has two young children, thinks the cuts will mean more antisocial behaviour and litter, deterring families from visiting parks.
"Everybody will only realise how much good they do when they're gone," she said.
"The police rely on them as well because they are more likely to go to things. If we go to the park we want to make sure we know our kids are safe. Give it one to two years and it will be back to how it was.
"A lot of people are quite shocked that the council is going to get rid of something that we desperately need."
Other cost-saving city council proposals include charging £25 a year for garden waste collections and pulling the £50,000 Walk and Ride bus subsidy.
It also intends to reduce the Lincoln Drill Hall grant support by £75,000, spread over four to five years, and cut the £1,000 a year per councillor ward budget.
Ric Metcalfe, leader of the city council said: "We recognise these services will be a great loss to the city.
"These are proposals we would never had even considered except for the very serious financial the government has placed us in.
"We will be doing everything we can to try and avoid making compulsory redundancies of the staff affected.
"We are looking at ways which at least some of the activities undertaken be the urban rangers and commons warden can be carried out in other ways."
The council will consider its new budget at a meeting on March 5, ahead of decision on the urban rangers being made on April 16.
13 Comments
View all
by ConnieSneint
Sunday, March 03 2013, 12:09PM
“Reply to Oldernwiser re China
No I didn't go all over China. I was commenting on the three main parts of China where I worked, Beijing, Nanjing, and Hong Kong. The point I was trying to make is that the streets in China are very safe, as there are police and police informers everywhere. It's a balance between freedom of the individual to walk around in safety or the freedom of criminals to get a fair trial with a fair system of justice. That doesn't really happen in China, and corruption is rife. And of course I haven't been everywhere on Earth but I have been all over America, Europe and much of Asia. Crime statistics are available on the web. How reliable they are is uncertain. I felt most unsafe when i lived in Jamaica for a couple of years on a placement with a voluntary organisation. I learned to live with it, but I didn't like it. Police presence is an important method of preventing crime, as New York mayors have frequently said. Since that policy has worked in New York, I think it is disingenuous to believe that the reverse would not result in an increase in crime.”
by nolies
Saturday, March 02 2013, 1:27PM
“It amazes me that they are paying a park warden £38,000 and the other wardens £30,000 each a year to just ride their bikes around.”
by rick29
Saturday, March 02 2013, 12:37PM
“why dont the council use some of the millions they have in reserves to pay for the rangers for a few more years instead of scrapping them.”
by Oldernwiser
Saturday, March 02 2013, 10:12AM
“Thank you Connie - I just fancy you'd have had to have lived in a whole lot of places to be able to say that China "is a safe place compared to most places on earth'.
That's a whole lot of places .....
I haven't ...... and China's a pretty big place with, I imagine, localities as different (probably more so) as localities in the UK which makes any generalisation pretty-much worthless, I fancy.
Interesting, maybe. Fun, almost certainly. But useful as a determiner of policy - probably not.
In the meantime, once the wardens have gone, I guess we'll just have to go on risking Hartsholme Park - unless it's been built on because people different from us start to use it.”
by ConnieSneint
Friday, March 01 2013, 8:02PM
“Oldernwiser
Far too well written and reasonable a comment for this forum. Mostly I agree with you apart from the China thing. I spent several years in China and it really is a safe place compared with most places on Earth - maybe not compared with Lincoln, but safer than it used to be. That's because of a ruthless police machine supported by millions of paid informers. The Park Police in China, and they are present in every park, do keep control, but are easy to bribe. I never saw any doggers in Chinese parks - more usually it's health conscious pensioners doing exercises, but if the doggers paid the police enough, they would be able to get away with it. Might even be able to sell tickets as the Chinese are very resourceful that way.”
by Pete67
Friday, March 01 2013, 7:10PM
“ChickenBob - - - It isn't bad living on the fruits of love, but it's the skins that choke the wildlife that are the problem (from 1960s joke).”
by ChickenBob
Friday, March 01 2013, 6:52PM
“I have got nothing against doggers in the Park, but I do wish they would clear up the mess afterwards. They should take a plastic bag and a spade with them when they go dogging, not leave the mess which is unsightly and can spread germs.”
by Pete67
Friday, March 01 2013, 6:41PM
“All publicity is good publicity? I wonder how many people will go after reading the article?”
by nolies
Friday, March 01 2013, 4:16PM
“They should install a meter,make some money out of them,lol”
by Oldernwiser
Friday, March 01 2013, 2:15PM
“Oh dear. It's such a pity when contributors respond from the gut rather than from the facts.
I'm no fan of any political party, but we would do well to recognise that the Labour Party may well have been in power when the financial crisis erupted, but the crisis was caused by the banks ... here's a report of the contribution made by Mervyn King to a parliamentary select committee looking into the crisis:
"The Governor of the Bank of England told the Treasury select committee that the billions spent bailing out the banks and the need for public spending cuts were the fault of the financial services sector.
"The price of this financial crisis is being borne by people who absolutely did not cause it," he said. "Now is the period when the cost is being paid, I'm surprised that the degree of public anger has not been greater than it has."
It was, in short, the banks which created the problems. And they will continue to be with us for many years to come.
Contributions are also weakened when hyperbole and / or unjustified statements are used like fireworks going off in a box.
China is far from being one of the safest places on earth ..... not that that has anything at all to do with Hartsholme Park, but as for the park becoming 'totally unsafe' if the wardens are withdrawn, maybe we can all give the comment the weight it deserves ....
Reason and balance are usually helpful - ill-informed and exaggerated comments rarely so.”