Dundee City Council has been urged to prioritise the safety of its £14,000 outdoor gym initiative at a vandalism hot-spot when a new CCTV hub launches.
The £750,000 Safety and Alarm Centre will open at the West Housing Office at Sinclair Street, bringing footage from existing council CCTV cameras under one roof.
However, it will not necessarily include the instalment of new cameras.
Fintry Community Council has now warned that unless urgent security measures are taken at Powrie Park, vandals will likely target the new exercise equipment that is due to be delivered in the near future.
The gym initiative came about after the Dundee Decides consultation, which allowed residents to have their say on how the local authority should spend the £1.2 million Community Infrastructure Fund.
The play area in Powrie Park in Fintry, which only opened last April after years of community fundraising, has already been vandalised at least three times.
Earlier this summer local residents asked for security cameras to be installed after youths deliberately set fire to grass and play equipment.
Fintry Community Council chairman Ron Neave said: “There are plans to put in exercise equipment in Powrie Park — like an outdoor gym.
“It will cost somewhere in the region of £12-14K, which isn’t cheap — so we want to make sure the equipment doesn’t get vandalised, which will likely happen if there are no cameras.
“We’ve been trying to get CCTV put in Powrie Park for a long time but we’ve been quoted nearly £3000 for it and we just don’t have the money to do that at the moment.
“We’re still in the process of trying to replace the vandalised play equipment. The vandals destroyed the swings and set fire to the wooden bollards around six weeks ago.
“If we can just track down the minority who are doing this then we can move forward and CCTV will help us do that.
“We’re going to speak to the council again about their new CCTV hub, to see if Fintry will be covered and if they can put in security cameras at Powrie Park.”
A Dundee City Council spokesperson confirmed that the hub will cover the Fintry area, but will not necessarily include the installation of new cameras.
The spokesperson added: “If residents have concerns they should report them to us and we can monitor the location.”
