Pitch gates may be locked to the public
GATES to the football pitch at Penllwyn Park in Carmarthen could be locked to the public and only opened when an arranged match is to be played.
A sub-committee of Carmarthen Town Council, which owns the park that sits between Picton Place and Sycamore Way, has put forward the recommendation to lock the gates after a summer of incidents, including shards of broken glass beer bottles being strewn across the grass, coupled with a long-standing problem of dog fouling plaguing the area.
Following the recommendation of the council’s general purposes committee, which is made up of a small delegation of councillors, a final decision is expected to be taken by all councillors at the monthly meeting of Carmarthen Town Council today (Wednesday).
In a statement the council said: “There have been historical problems of dog fouling on the pitch and more recently, significant amounts of broken glass have been left on the pitch.
“All of this has made it unsafe for use by the children and young people that play for local junior football teams, and matches have had to be postponed due to the risk of injury to the players. At a meeting of the general purposes committee of the town council on September 14, members recommended that the gates to the pitch are locked when it is not used for pre-arranged football matches.
“The recommendation will now be considered further by the full Town Council during its next meeting.”
However, town mayor Cllr Gareth John hopes an alternative solution can be found as he believes closing the gates to the public should be the last resort.
Cllr John said: “This is a longstanding problem at what is an extremely valuable asset and resource. Denying access would definitely be the very last resort and I would welcome suggestions on how we can all work together to prevent the actions of a minority of irresponsible individuals spoiling things for the majority.”
Earlier in the year the park’s children’s play area was forced to shut temporarily after vandals smashed a slide with large rocks.
The criminal damage resulted in a large hole at the bottom of the slide, putting it off limits to children for some time.