There are serious concerns about safety in Tarnica Park with reports of anti-social behaviour, fighting and even a stabbing not long ago. Check out this Times article for more.
It's very concerning to see these issues happening, especially in my local park. There's a range of things we need to do and locals are asking for the Local Board to install lights. This isn't a silver bullet, but it's a good start and I fully support getting them installed as soon as possible and I'm not alone.
On Saturday we had a public meeting in the park and the solid turnout of local residents despite the pouring rain was encouraging. There were some very concerning stories about issues in the park which has left many residents concerned about allowing their children walk through it in daylight.
I spoke about what the Botany Crime Watch Patrol does in the area to help protect our community. I've spoken to our Operations Manager who's ensured that we have this park noted as needing extra checks.
In my personal opinion there's more work that needs doing, including having the park assessed for safety, known as crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED). This is being arranged for Tarnica Park now, but we need to take a proactive approach to security in our parks and have them all assessed, starting with the parks people visit the most. New parks and redesigns go through this process but we need to assess what we've got already.