Deliberate damage to parks costs City of Helsinki millions every year

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The maintenance of Helsinki parks costs the city EUR 11 million every year, while 1.5 million euros of this sum goes to the repairs of vandalism. At its worst, deliberate damage means cutting trees, blowing up litter bins, and breaking park benches into pieces.
     
The capital has some 900 hectares of parks, which equals 15 square metres per each Helsinki resident. In addition, the city’s aggregate green area is seven times larger than that.
      "Vandalism is so common that repairing it has become part of maintenance", says Petri Arponen, who is in charge of the parks in Helsinki. In other words, it is not possible to calculate the exact sum resulting from individual acts of vandalism.
      For example, the costs caused by the destruction of one round litter bin are EUR 250, while the destruction of a fixed park bench usually carries a bill of almost EUR 1,000.
      Project Manager Elina Nummi from the city’s Public Works Department reports that even some deep garbage containers have been burned. Such damage can amount to more than EUR 2,000. The current number of such deep garbage containers is 200.
     
Gardener Riitta Partanenestimates that the number of destroyed park benches in Kaivopuisto Park has been lower during the past two summers, following the attachment of plates with poems on the backs of the benches. Could poetry have calmed down the culprits?
      "Maybe they have just become tired of smashing places up", Partanen hopes.
     
Nummi notes further that it would be sensible to put fences around some parks. It would make it possible to carry out some improvements.
      Since the beginning of the new millennium, the situation has become so bad that the parks in downtown Helsinki have to be cleaned even at weekends. It costs another EUR 60,000 per year.


Links:
  City of Helsinki Public Works Department

Helsingin Sanomat