Kirkby Times has once again been asked to look at the matter of St Chad's
and the various acts of vandalism which are going on there. The matter was
reported in Sept when the new wood carvings were put in place, sadly the
carvings were vandalised shortly afterwards as well as the mosaics which
are also in The Chad or Millennium Park as some bright-spark renamed it.
Viking Longboat
The Viking Longboat carving has been taken away. We presume it
has been taken away to be restored but it could have been stolen to
order for all we know. The carving has been repeatedly burnt, and local
youths were using trolleys 'donated' by local store Somerfield, who we
will come back to shortly.
Below, where has it gone? - answers to Kirkby Times please.
There is also a carving of houses which can be seen below and in the first photo at the top of this page.
You can see that in approx 60 or 70 days, the carving has deteriorated
considerably due to vandalism and will likely need to renovated. A chimney
has been snapped off and paint has been thrown on it as well as graffiti
painted on it. There is also a third carving, still there, and also vandalised.
There was also racist graffiti on this carving, a matter which Kirkby Times has
raised before. The Council and Housing Trust have ignored previous complaints
from me regarding racist graffiti elsewhere.
Wooden Bridge Burnt
The wooden bridge at Mill Pond has been burnt. This is a great shame as
the bridge itself was a good piece of workmanship which took a great deal of time
and trouble and expense to build for us. The bridge was set alight in the middle.
The pond itself, which was a great boating lake and leisure attraction in years
past, is still a beautiful place, but there is a need for full time park wardens
to patrol and look after the areas. Knowsley Council, who seem to be cutting all
their departments apart from management, seem to be so stupid that they cannot
see the value in employing locals to look after these areas.
Somerfield trolleys.
Whilst taking photos, I spoke to a number of people including a lady walking
her dog who, like me had been photographing the vandalism and complaining
to both Knowsley Council and local store Somerfield whose bigger loading
trolleys are being used by the kids to build fires to burn the Viking
carving. Plastic bread trays ensure a good blaze whilst polluting the
Kirkby air a little bit more.
The River Alt is also home to a number of these trolleys.
Other stores will also have trolleys being dumped but the one
pictured was a Somerfield trolley. The £1 deposit system seems not to be
working, people seem to use the trolley to take shopping to a car/taxi
then leave it for kids to take off with, batter open the deposit slot,
and dump the trolley. The back of the Somerfield is open for anyone to
take trolleys, and this is where the larger trolleys seem to be vanishing
from. Maybe Somerfield can review the security situation, the loss of
these trolleys is costing them, (we would like Somerfield to be honest
enough to let us know the cost) it's also costing the people of Kirkby
as someone has to be paid to retrieve the trolleys. Who, we may ask,
has the responsibility to look after St Chad's or Millennium green?
The River Alt isn't much, but when it's clean of rubbish it is nice
to look at and hundreds if not thousands of us enjoy a leisurely
stroll along its banks. It is one of the few places in Kirkby which
you can appreciate for its natural environment. A true beauty spot
which we need to preserve for generations to come.
Below, the mosaics are being tore up bit by bit
Knowsley Council, for all their talk of 'concern for the Environment' seem
to ignore us when we complain. What can we expect from the people who bought us
Sonae, took away Windy Arbour, and took away St Kev's. It's not just the kids
on 3 cans of beer who are messing up the environment here. The Council themselves
are the worse offenders going on their track record so far.
PS - If you use St Chad's then please send in your reports
and photos, good and bad, for inclusion on Kirkby Times.
