Maitland mayoral candidate Brian Burke said it’s time to get tough on vandals.
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Cr Burke said the city needs get serious about security and have some form of surveillance put in place in The Levee.
His call comes just days after vandals defaced a new council car park and garden at the newly refurbished No. 1 Sportsground.
The sportsground was left in a mess when plants were ripped out of the ground and strewn across the car park. This followed a similar attack on a local park at Gillieston Heights.
“I know the issue of CCTV for the CBD has been bandied about before but it’s time to get serious now and act following this recent spate of vandalism,” Cr Burke said.
“The damage at the sportsground was the turning point for me to do something,” Cr Burke said.
“What is wrong with these people committing these crimes? What is going on in their heads? What enjoyment do they get out of this?”
“When I had a business at Morpeth we had a problem with vandalism, break-ins etc and as a business association we employed our own security guard. His role was to start at midnight and walk from the Commercial Hotel to Campbell’s Store and the vandalism stopped overnight,” Cr Burke said.
“This is not political and it’s not about the election it’s about the fact that we have a new multi million dollar facility in the Riverlink building and we have people roaming around The Levee, the athletics field and we as citizens have to make sure these projects are treated with respect.”
Cr Burke said the city now has millions of dollars of new assets in The Levee, indoor pool, sportsground and the new $10million Regional Athletics Complex (now in the design process) that need to be protected.
“I recently met with police and they are of the same view that we as citizens have to be more vigilant in assisting authorities. Police can only stretch their resources so far. We don’t necessarily have to confront offenders but we need to be more aware, get registration plates, descriptions, times, locations etc.”
Cr Burke said he will raise the question of CBD security at next week’s council meeting.
“We need to be on top of this before the Riverlink building opens,” he said,
“We need to have some form of security locked in. We may need to revisit the possibility of CCTV in the CBD as a way of ensuring the protection of these valuable city assets.”
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