Elland Riverside Park is getting a £50000 makeover! | Elland Today Forums

I couldn't believe this article in the Halifax Evening Courier when I first stumbled across it.

I was outraged!

Some of you who live or work in Elland or know someone who lives or works in Elland will know which riverside park they are talking about and for those who don't I can certainly confirm it's no "rural gem".  More like smack head central.  I regularly ride my bike through this apparent "rural gem" to get to and from the canal side path and when I don't get a puncture from riding over used needles etc, I always have to power down to avoid all of the "darkseekers" that tend to congregate there getting smacked.

Last year volunteers planted hundreds of wild flowers and daffodil bulbs and cleared half a ton of litter.

Halifax Sub Aqua Club also cleaned up the River Calder.

Those two statements may be true, but they don't tell you how many bodies were pulled from the river do they and by "wild flowers" do they mean they just allowed the lawned areas to go fallow and let dandelions and various other weeds grow (as it appears)?

I've got to say, for £50k I feel slightly let down by these efforts, especially knowing that I could have spent that £50k on re-landscaping my garden to allow friends, family and neighbours enjoy my garden and BBQs more throughout the summer months.  In fact for that amount of money, I'm certain we could have erected some sort of construction that we could all have enjoyed in the winter too!  And (and I know its bad form to start a sentence with an "and", but I'm going for effect), had that been the case, they would have gotten some serious change from the £50k!

The rest of the article talks about more goody goody volunteers helping to improve the environment blah blah, but I see nothing in the article about clearing out the resident smack heads with a flame thrower whilst they are comatose, which TBF is perhaps the most humane way to rid the riverside park of them and, apart from re-landscaping my garden is also the best way to spend that £50k.

Does anyone else have any better ideas for spending the £50k or for getting rid of the Smack Heads in the park?

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