Renovations underway at the Beacon Hill Park playlot adjacent to Cook Street change the bona fide playing field appearance to a gymnasium. Note, for example, the lawn bowling greens and cricket pitch.
Health-providing grass that was previously growing there has been replaced with several large concrete areas on which equipment is embedded.
Two of them will be linked by a long, intercepting hanging wire from which children could swing across – plus a concrete path built underneath the wire for them to fall on.
A large crater-like hole has also been dug, awaiting concrete fill. Other changes include new paths throughout the site and one adjacent to Nursery Road, which is the entrance to the parks maintenance yard. The entrance on Cook Street used for staff parking could have been chosen instead, saving that unnecessary spoilage and expense.
So much for the current educational goal to encourage youth to appreciate and enjoy natural areas.
Repair the spoilage, replace the removed soil and replant it.
But that’s not all. The traffic plan proposed includes shuffling pedestrians on to sidewalk-like paths, presumably to avoid road traffic.
Most of the roads surrounding the park are actually within its boundaries. Let them be used by all the vehicles. Make what remains of lovely Beacon Hill Park traffic-free, ensuring safety and appropriate enjoyment for the public at large.
Betty Gibbens
Victoria