Trying to Bring Life Back to Blagdon Park

In a concrete world, patches of grass are precious and appreciated. One such area of green is Blagdon Park in New Malden. Being a matter of minutes away from the high street, it is no surprise why people would be attracted to it.

Recently work has begun to add more equipment to the adventure park and to improve the existing facilities. New and innovative games for children are being installed along with a complete tarmac resurfacing of the existing basketball court.

With this construction in progress one would expect the park to be a social success. Despite these circumstances, the area is lately being described as ‘no-go’ after late afternoon. The park has been the setting for robberies and violent attacks. It is not uncommon for people to suffer assaults and to see gangs of youths smoking and drinking there on a daily basis. The park doubles up as a shortcut that many joggers and pedestrians use; the passers-by are normally the victims of these vicious attacks.

Earlier in the month, a teenager was sentenced to seven years in jail for carrying out an attack in the park; the incident involved a gang attack that left the victim in a coma. The attack was described in court as the ‘most serious form of grievous bodily harm one can imagine.’ A witness claimed to have seen the victim being surrounded by five gang members. He said “I saw one boy lying there. I thought he was dead.” Especially after such high profile cases occurring in the park, it is unbelievable that nothing has been done to prevent the incidents and even more to think that they decided to attract children to such a dangerous spot.

The scheme to improve the park could be an attempt to make it a more family oriented space. It could also be to discourage the congregation of youths or to provide alternatives for youngsters to be engaged in.

Nevertheless it is hard to overlook just how dangerous the park is and maybe a more sensible route is needed. Are the improvements simply increasing the number of possible victims? No doubt the funding used to improve the facilities could have been spent tightening the security of the area. Community officers and more CCTV cameras are amongst the extras that would have made the money well spent. This is especially due to the recent concerns that the existing cameras were broken for the most part of last summer.

Furthermore, no matter how generous and costly the play equipment may be, aren’t they just waiting to be vandalised by the criminals? Graffiti and damage of property are big issues of the park and planting new equipment there is foolish.

When more could be done to make the park into a thriving, successful and most importantly, safe one, the addition of the new play area seems a waste of money. It seems the park’s dangerous manner is being masked by the scheme; don’t be fooled, the new set of gleaming swings is simply a facade.