‘People just poo everywhere there’
Users of a popular Christchurch park are fed up with waiting for new toilets, while other city parks get new playgrounds and solar toilets.
The St Albans Park toilet block has been closed since it was damaged in the 2011 earthquakes. Two portable toilets have been put on site but that did not stop people from defecating in the bushes, resident Lyn Henderson said.
Henderson, who has lived in the area for 20 years, walks her two wire-haired fox terriers in the park most days.
On more than one occasion her dogs have come out of the bushes covered in human faeces.
‘‘I have to go home and give them a bath,’’ she said.
‘‘People use the bushes as a toilet quite regularly. People just poo everywhere there.’’
Henderson said it was ‘‘outrageous’’ the toilets had not been repaired or replaced yet. ‘‘It’s such a busy park.’’ The park was popular with parents, children, dog walkers and sports teams. Two cricket games were taking place there on Saturday.
‘‘What are people meant to do? Take a number and line up outside the portaloos?’’
Henderson said a number of people she talked to at the park were upset the toilet block had yet to be fixed, especially after hearing the Christchurch City Council was spending $150,000 on a new playground at nearby Abberley Park.
They have also watched as the council installed new toilet blocks at other parks. In 2015, the it spent almost $1 million on eight new stateof-the-art solar-powered toilet blocks in parks across the city and Banks Peninsula.
Council head of parks Andrew Rutledge said the St Albans Park toilets would be replaced during the next financial year, which starts in July. Funding had not been made available until then.
The sports ground suffered from poor drainage, which led to it being closed from May to November, so the council would be fixing that at the same time it repaired the toilets, he said.