Encouraging local ownership of projects by gaining support and participation from the local community will help reduce vandalism.
Organised vandalism can sometimes be averted by consulting with particular groups who use an area. These may include walkers, motor bike scramblers, fishermen, and others who use a site for a particular purpose.Anything which alters their accustomed pattern of use may become a target for organised and sustained vandalism.
Opportunistic vandalism can be channelled by leaving or creating sacrificial ‘honeypot’ features, which attract potential vandals, and distract attention from features you want to protect.
Another approach is to avoid creating heavyweight, anti- vandal features, which may merely act as a challenge.Alow key approach may fail to rouse the interest of a potential vandal. For example, chestnut paling fencing, which looks flimsy, yet is difficult to climb and awkward to take apart, may survive longer than a more substantial fence.
A certain amount of untidiness, and a low-key unobtrusive approach can avoid attracting attention to vulnerable features. new trees can be left unweeded, except around their base, or even disguised with rubbish, until they are established and no longer an obvious target. Fencing and tree guards are likely to be counter-productive. Random planting patterns and local species which look as if they have appeared naturally are also more likely to avoid attention than planting which is obviously ‘man-made’. Where vandalism to new trees is likely, it may be best to start by planting willow pegs, disguised amongst uncut grass. Pegs are simply newly-cut lengths of willow, stuck into the ground the same way up as when growing. If ‘planted’ in early spring they will quickly sprout bushy growth. After a couple of seasons, the selected tree species can then be planted amongst the willows, which can be coppiced as necessary.
Plants which disguise features or make them inaccessible can be left. Bramble is an excellent barrier. At Highgate Cemetery, volunteers initially removed ivy from gravestones so that the inscriptions could be read, but then found that the stones were being vandalised. Further removal of ivy was then stopped, but work continued by lifting the ivy aside sufficiently so that the inscriptions could be recorded. Although this goes against the aim of local participation, some of this type of work is necessarily best done without publicity and without involving those sectors of the local community which are most likely to include potential vandals.
In choosing species for planting, prickly ones are an obvious choice to discourage vandalism. Shrubs and trees which naturally ‘coppice’ or regrow from the base are another useful choice, as they will survive a certain amount of breakage and trampling. A useful technique is to cut down newly-planted young trees and shrubs to a 75mm stub. This leaves little for the vandal to see or grasp, and by the time the plant regrows, the vandals may have lost interest. Even where vandalism is not a problem this is a valid planting technique for most deciduous species, as it encourages the plant to develop a strong root system. By the time the stems regrow the roots should be strong enough to resist vandals and drought.
In areas where fires may be started deliberately, unmown grassland may not be advisable, as by late summer it will be tall, dry and easy to burn. Where wildflower meadows are the objective, it may be better to choose ‘spring meadows’, which flower in May and June, and are then mown. Clumps of bramble are another possible target, as the dry bramble within is easy to light. Avoid leaving any piles of cut material which can be ‘torched’.
A different anti-vandal approach is to build such substantial features that vandalism is impossible. This technque has been successfully used with pond creation, using a complex structure of concrete and building membranes to make a vandal proof pond. Flexible liners can be ruined by vandalism, as well as easily damaged during pond maintenance.
Darlington, Co. Durham
In Darlington, some success has been achieved by TCV in creating vandal honeypots, normally around the perimeter of sites. Particular favourites are wooden posts knocked into mounds. The posts get climbed and swung on, and children tend to gather there in preference to other places. The mounds need not be vegetated, as they rapidly turn to bare ground from trampling and sliding. Any large items of wood, stone or metal that are reasonably safe may have the same function. Obvious favourite sites are high ground, banks and slopes and places where children feel they can see without being seen, even though you both see and know what they are doing.
