“Our Queen Elizabeth Park kaitiaki Mike – he is dreading every morning coming to work because we are losing plants out of the park regularly,” he said.
“His main concern is that with Armistice Day coming up very shortly, the area around the Anzac Memorial was getting targeted – we are losing lots of plants.”
The incidents had come after several mature kōwhai trees in the suffrage memorial grove area below the park’s swing bridge were chopped down with chainsaws this month and a large tree felled at Henley Lake several weeks earlier.
“We are also getting vehicles deliberately knocking over general road signs,” Osland said.
One vehicle had been captured on CCTV at Hood Aerodrome stopping, pulling over on to the berm and deliberately knocking over a sign, he said.
This had been reported to police.
“That’s the type of stuff we are experiencing week to week now,” he said.
Councillor Andrea Jackson asked if Osland could give an estimate on what the repeated acts of vandalism were costing ratepayers but this information was not immediately available.
He said council contractors were being distracted from contractual work because they were having to continually fix public property.
LDR is local body journalism funded by RNZ and NZ on Air.
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