Sportsground joyride results in expensive bill for ratepayers

A joyride at the Picton Sportsground last month caused significant damage to the fields and had Council staff putting their scheduled work on hold to clean up the mess. The offender had cut a padlock to open the gates to the facility and driven a vehicle recklessly across the fields, doing ‘donuts’ and making deep ruts on the ground on the rainy evening of 24 July. The estimated cost for the repairs came to $3500, including callout costs on the night of the incident, a crew to carry out the repairs and 7 tonnes of top soil to fill the holes. This did not include the other jobs that were put on hold while the repairs were carried out and the inconvenience to sporting clubs who had to re-linemark all the fields. Picton High School was unable to access the fields for their regular sporting activities and had to relocate to Hume Oval until the field was safe to play on again. Mayor Matthew Deeth said, “Council maintains 25 hectares of sports fields across the Shire and is supported by the majority of the community in taking care of these valued open spaces.” “It is disappointing to see this sort of damage intentionally caused to one of our public facilities.” Fortunately the ruts did not go deep enough to damage the irrigation system. or the cost would have been much higher. Council reported the damage to police who carried out investigations and were able to find the culprit.