CARDIFF Council is proposing to stop locking some of the city’s largest parks at night as they look to cut £50million from the spending budget.
The council has historically operated a park locking system which included the locking of 18 parks across the system. Some parks included in the scheme are Roath Park, Bute Park and Llandaff fields.
If the proposed plans were to go ahead then the current number of parks locked each night would be reduced to just five. Bute Park, Victoria Park, Parc Cefn Onn, Roath Park (including Pleasure Gardens) and Thompson’s Park would remain under the park locking scheme.
The council claim in their budget proposal outlines that a scheme of reduced park locking was trialled in 2013, where eight parks were taken out of the locking system.
It is also claimed in their proposals that the trial which was implemented last year had no adverse effects.
Grange Garden is one of the parks that will no longer be locked at night
“I don’t like the idea at all.” said Christine Davies of Grangetown Community Concern. “People will just call the police more. I don’t see any benefit because people will congregate there.
“Youngsters have already climbed over the gates and caused trouble. It’ll be even worse at night if the gates aren’t locked.”
Grangetown resident, Mona Esa, said the move will “give people an area to stay at night. At the moment, there’s more trouble down the docks. No one comes to Grangetown to cause trouble because there’s nowhere for the to stay.
“Having parks open at night will attract people and cause problems for the neighbours.”
