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By TOM FOOT
 

The playground in Castlehaven Gardens
Heartless crooks make off with kids' playground

THIEVES posing as builders with hard hats and pneumatic drills stole equipment from a community centre’s children’s playground in Camden Town.
According to eyewitness, three men were seen removing a seesaw, swings and a chicken on a spring from the playground from Castlehaven Gardens at 10am last Sunday.
The equipment – which cost the Castlehaven Community Centre £3,000 after a fund-raising offensive in 2001 – were embedded six feet into the ground and locked down with concrete girders.
The centre was temporarily housed in Hawley Road while the council revamped the area.
The works, which began in January 2006, drew £195,000 from the Government’s Liveability Fund to make Castlehaven gardens “safer, greener and more welcoming for local residents.”
Because works were ongoing, unknowing residents assumed builders were working overtime.
Eyewitness Peter Turner who is on the Castlehaven centre committee, woke on Sunday morning to the sound of heavy drilling.
He said: “It made me look out of the window. There were three men in hard hats with pneumatic drills. I thought they were just putting in some extra hours.
The next day, centre manager Eleanor Botwright confronted contractors Daley Watkins about the missing playground who said no work was planned for Sunday because the project was on schedule.
She said: “I phoned the police immediately. It sounds like a bad joke, especially when you know the builders were there under Camden’s Liveability fund – which is supposed to improve community safety.”
Billy Osbourne, who volunteers at the centre said: “I used to say anything could get nicked from Camden unless it was bolted down – but now I’m not sure. It’s a shame because a lot of time and effort went into getting that the playground there in the first place.”
The centre and the contractors are negotiating over who is accountable.
 
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