By Victoria Stone-Meadows
The Merinda Park Learning and Community Centre were greeted with a shocking sight when they returned to their Endeavour Drive address on Tuesday 21 February.
The members of the learning centre arrived at the property to find a skip bin had been raided, masking tape and paint tins had been strewn across the park and a bong left behind in the rotunda.
The building has been closed for eight months as renovations were undertaken at the property, and Merinda Park Learning and Community Centre CEO Jan Gilchrist said it was disgraceful to see what had happened when they returned.
“We had just moved back in, and come in this morning to a bong and masking tape all around the park, graffiti everywhere, and the skip and strewn around, other rubbish about and more,” she said.
“We are here to help, support, and serve the community, but then we have these kids that are coming in and doing this sort of thing.”
“The skate ramp has been tidied up and painted, but now has graffiti all over it; it is disappointing to see the park in that state.”
The Merinda Park Learning and Community Centre operates from within the ground of Merinda Park which is owned and maintained by the City of Casey.
“It is council land in the park, but we try to keep our areas tidy and clean and report graffiti which happens on a regular basis and council mows it,” Ms Gilchrist said.
“We take pride in the park and try to keep it respectable so parents can go out with their kids to the playground, so we sort of have that community sense of pride; we want parents and students to be able to use the rotunda to eat lunch and have break.”
Ms Gilchrist said the park had been impacted by this behaviour before, and it always fell back on the volunteers or students at the centre to pick up the pieces.
“I would say this happens quite regularly; we are talking teenagers and a bit younger mostly get out into the park and congregate leaving rubbish around or older teens of driving age leaving rubbish in the car park,” she said.
“We know in the past there have been drug deals done in the car park, and we have come back to a new building this is not quite finished but our students can’t go out to the park until we go out and clean it up.”
While Ms Gilchrist said there were improvements that could be made to the park to deter people from this behaviour; she thinks it was designed in a way that left it open for abuse.
“We could probably use some better lighting at night,” she said.
“We’ve got good lighting in the car park, but after hours the area is very open to abuse and people being able to get here while the housing around has all the back fences so the residential area isn’t facing into the park at all.”
“A presence of police would also be welcome, but knowing what police resources are like it’s not possible as it stands at the moment.”
Ms Gilchrist is encouraging the neighbours of the community learning centre to keep an eye out after dark for any activity in the park and to report suspicious behaviour to the police.
“We are making community aware of what has occurred, so if residents hear noises we ask them to stick their head over the back fence and have a look and ring the police if you see anything,” she said.
“The more times it’s reported, the more chance we have they will do drive-bys, but as it is they think there are no issues.”
