Youngsters’ hard work at garden is ruined by drunks

Drunken vandals trashed a wildflower garden at the Kingsmead Field in Canterbury – just days after it had been worked on by schoolchildren.

Between 10 and 15 young men were seen loitering at the field on Thursday evening last week before they ripped fence posts surrounding the garden out of their fixtures and threw beer cans into the Stour.

In May, youngsters from the nearby St Stephen’s Primary School and Riverside Children’s Society had been invited to plant flowers in the garden.

Sian Pettman, of the Friends of Kingsmead Field, looks after the garden and helped the children work on it.

She said: “It’s so demoralising when things like this happen.

“We brought the children down here to work on it and involve them in a really nice project, and this happens.

“Their piece of the garden wasn’t too badly affected. It was trampled on a bit, but they ripped all the fence posts out and threw them about.”

Martial arts instructor Barry Phelan, who volunteers at the field, put them back into the ground.

The Stour also suffered as empty cans of Coors Light beer and a cardboard box were dumped into the river.

The vandalism took place in the same week that Canterbury City Council started consulting on its proposed Public Space Protection Order.

Among its proposals are con- trols on persistent begging, urinating or defecating in public places, street drinking, street trading, buskers who fail to comply with the council’s voluntary code of conduct, cycling in some public areas, illegal peddling, outof-control dogs and dog fouling.

Mrs Pettman said: “This incident really raises the wider issue of there not being adequate supervision of open spaces in Canterbury.

“We could do with either litter enforcement at the parks or proper wardens patrolling them. There is no way that residents can be expected to deal with incidents such as excessive alcohol consumption, littering, vandalism and drug-taking.

“This requires someone in a position of authority with a hotline to police, the council and litter enforcement officers.”

Online consultation for the Public Space Protection Order proposals continues until Friday next week at www.canterbury. gov.uk/pspo

Beer containers dumped in the River Stour; martial arts instructor Barry Phelan repairs the fence around the Kingsmead Field

Pupils from St Stephen’s school had helped with the seeding