Without putting myself in same the bracket, there must be a high concentration of thick people living in our area. This does come as a surprise considering the amount we had to spend on our very modest 3 bed semi 2 years ago and the daylight robbery charge otherwise refered to as council tax that we pay but a trip to the duck pond has given me all the evidence that i need.
Now I grew up in Cambridgeshire with a duck pond a minute walk away from my back door. We went there daily unattended by an adult and threw bread to the ducks right from the waters edge, in fact we would often lay on our bellies hands in the water to grab frog spawn and other nature goodies. Living now on the far reaches of london our local duck pond has been wrapped in cotton wool for our children's safety.
To put this into some sort of context this duck pond is well set back from any road and is actually more of a puddle than a pond. One can walk around it with a slow coach three year old and a pushchair in less than a minute and there are so few ducks that one slice of bread can do the lot of them (thats includes the odd bit being stolen by the 3 year old and 9 month old). No child in my ten years off living in the area has fallen in or been injured near by so why oh why have the local grey suits had to waste my tax money messing with the place.
They have: 1) put a fence round the pond and half the grass(you can't get within 5 foot of the waters edge, 2) pulled up most of the plants, 3) put up safety signs, 4)repaved the entrance - which was already fine, and 4) shortened the opening times.
The cost of destroying this bit of local green spot must have run into the thousands and why do we need sodding safety notices telling us how to feed ducks. I am half expecting to see an ambualance resting out side next time I visit just in case some poor child manages to heaven forbid fall and graze a knee, but i suppose since no one is allow to put a plaster on a child in case of an allergic reation would be another PC bit of madness.
So I suppose the council's next steps would be to put half a dozen antibacterial handwash stations and footbaths on the exits, in fact why don't they just spoil all our childrens fun and freedom but concreting over the pond and getting some local artist to make a modern interpretation of a duck statute instead? - because the poor children might climb on the statute !!!!!