A FORMER mayor has condemned the vandals who damaged the children's play area at Lion Green in Haslemere. "It is an appalling situation and cannot be allowed to go on," declared Michael Dover." His comments followed the latest incident, last Wednesday night, when "large quantities of broken glass" had to be removed from the site along with glass fragments which had become embedded in the 'safety surface'. It resulted in the town council having to close the children's play area for the rest of week, including the entire weekend, to allow its contractors to clear the debris and 'vacuum' the rubber safety surface to remove the dangerous shards of glass. The area was re-opened on Monday morning of this week but a roundabout which was already broken is still out of action and is awaiting repair. Parents too have reacted angrily to the latest vandalism and bombarded the town council with answerphone messages following the discovery. Parent Kirstie Hockham, who has four children, three of the youngest of which use the play area on a regular basis, claimed that the vandalism "had got even worse with the better weather and light evenings. "We have lived in Lion Lane for a year and it has become considerably worse over the last four to five months." "Somebody smashed a very large bottle across the play apparatus and the whole matting was covered in shards of glass. There was glass everywhere and I phoned the town council. "We go down there with the children and end up picking up handfuls of glass mainly by the area fenced off for the really young ones. "It is very dangerous for children who use the area and sometimes parents aren't aware. It really is getting very silly and quite horrendous," said Mrs Hockham. "I don't know what the answer is, but she claimed that 15, 16 and 17 year olds were allowed to roam around and drink." Sarah Bates from Hammer, a former resident of Lion Lane, is also a regular visitor to the children's play area with her four-year-old son Joseph, who is a pupil at Shottermill Infant School, and Annabel who is two. She said there was also a lot of litter left after a hot holiday weekend "Lion Green is such an asset to the area but you can't relax, the children want to go bare foot." Mrs Bates believed that more litter bins would help along with additional police patrols. Mr Dover said that Lion Green "attracted a disproportionate amount of the town council's time and effort – frequently at the expense of other areas the town – when demands are made on our limited budget." A new concrete path across the nearby stream had to relaid recently after offensive language was written on it before the concrete set. "Putting glass in matting is just sheer badness and is basically evil," he declared. "You can't punish the community by taking away the facility so you have to do something else as a deterrent like having a CCTV camera there all the time. "What these semi brain-dead youngsters don't understand is that three to four-year olds crawling around might cut an artery in a wrist. It is profoundly stupid. "We can't just sit around and allow it to continue, what I am suggesting is a large dose of zero tolerance but what we don't want to do is brand all the young, most of whom are decent people." Haslemere's new mayor William King, said: "As a responsible town council and with the co-operation of the police we have got to stop this. It is not the place to drink and fling the empty bottles around. We must patrol the playground in such a way that it is a deterrent "We don't want 15 to 18-year-old lads spoiling this wonderful town." But Mr King believes CCTV sends out "mixed messages" and believes the problem could be stopped with the help of police community support officers. Inspector Simon Dann, Waverley's new neighbourhood specialist officer, said: "The local officer is aware of the broken glass in the Lion Green play area and is asking anyone using the facility to contact police if they see any anti-social behaviour. "It is a shame that someone using the playground saw fit to leave this glass which could be a hazard to other young users.
