New Bournemouth children’s playground vandalised day before grand opening

A new children’s playground at Kings Park in Bournemouth was vandalised a day before its grand opening.

BCP Council’s scheme, Plan for Play, is spending £3.9 million refurbishing children’s playgrounds across Bournemouth and Poole.

As part of this scheme, Kings Park has received a complete makeover, with new play equipment.

Residents reported oil had been splashed over a new park bench on November 2, the day before the grand opening event.

After the damage was reported, the parks operations team were able to clean up the oil before the opening.

Rebecca Whelan-Edmonds, part of the Plan for Play team, said; “We’ve seen a real increase locally in antisocial behaviour.

“Historically, we’ve always had graffiti on play areas but now we’re seeing swastikas and aggressive racial language drawn on our equipment.”

Rebecca wondered if the change in vandalism is because of the political changes in the UK.

Bourne Valley Park, which was refurbished over the summer, was also graffitied the week before the grand opening.

All new play parks have signage providing contact details to report vandalism. The council hopes that this will help them repair parks as soon as possible.

Playground vandalism is covered by insurance, but there is a limited budget on how much can be spent on repairs.

Equipment at Alexandra Park remained closed for a while because of an arson attack a few years ago.

The Plan for Play scheme has been in action for three years.

It started with discussions with local children about how they like to play, so this can be reflected in the designs of the new playground.

Playgrounds across the BCP area have received major updates since September 8.