COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF LUCAN AREA COMMITTEE

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

MOTION NO. 8

MOTION: Councillor W. Lavelle

"That this Area Committee, noting;

Calls on the Chief Executive to:

REPORT:

The Council endeavours to ensure that all its parks are safe at all times during opening hours. To ensure this occurs, passive supervision of parks is considered to be an essential measure. As far as possible, new planned parks are sited so that they are passively supervised by housing overlooking the park rather than backing onto or siding onto the park. Locations where houses back onto or side onto parks provide areas where anti-social activities are more likely to occur and every effort is made to eliminate these at the planning stage.

Not all parks are planned from a “blank canvas” and Griffeen Valley Park is one such example. There are some location in the park where housing backs onto the park and thinning of vegetation in these area is something that can assist with deterring anti-social activities.

During parks opening hours there are currently 4 Park Rangers employed to patrol the parks in the Palmerstown, Lucan and North Clondalkin areas. The Rangers are mobile and Griffeen Valley Park is included on the route that the Rangers visit. The parks are not patrolled outside of opening hours which is when most of the anti-social activities occur. We do however work closely with the Gardaí who provide support for our staff through their patrols and mountain bike unit to deter illegal activities. Communities can also play a role in the provision of safer parks by reporting anti-social activities to the Gardaí or directly to the Council. 

In relation to Griffeen Valley Park playground refurbishment the proposed fence will be 1.2m high so will adequately enclose the playground.  There is always the possibility of anti-social activity in parks at night time. Despite the fears the actual occurrence of playground vandalism in this area is quite rare. In order to prevent anti-social behaviour and vandalism we employ a range of smart design techniques. We avoid having hidden areas, we select robust equipment which withstands predicted levels of use, misuse and abuse. We do not have areas that offer shelter. We avoid large surfaces that could be targeted by graffiti and we are avoiding large hard surfaced areas in favour of natural surfaces. The new playground will have lots of items which will be of interest to and suitable for use by older children and which will withstand robust use. When the pool is constructed this area will become the most prominent public place in the park and therefore the least likely to attract clandestine night time activity.

While CCTV has a role to play in minimising anti-social activities, it is considered to form only one part of what needs to be an integrated approach involving other elements such as parental and community responsibility and measures such as zero tolerance policing. We have no evidence that CCTV is an effective means of protecting or supervising playgrounds or that indeed it is even required in this area. It would be highly unusual to have CCTV in playgrounds and indeed many parents may not be comfortable with their children being recorded. We have CCTV in Sean Walsh Park in Tallaght. It is part of a network of cameras in the centre of Tallaght and although we have been able to review instances of anti-social activity at night we have not been able to use the footage to identify anyone responsible for damage to equipment; nor has it prevented damage from occurring on occasions.

Over the course of our playground consultations for the past few years this issue is regularly discussed. The public demand is invariably for the Council to spend the budget predominantly on play items for their children rather than on items such as paths, parking, fencing or CCTV.