PICTURESQUE Virginia Ryan park in White Gum Valley is a nightmare to live next to because of druggies, says a local.

The woman, who didn’t want to be named, says as recently as last month her young daughter was playing in the park when confronted by the sight of a man with his pants around his ankles.

Given the park is a regular meeting point for drug dealers and residents from a nearby Homeswest complex, she now wonders whether he’d been simply taking his stash out of its damp, dark hiding place.

“His girlfriend was standing guard and she warned him ‘little girl, little girl’, the exasperated resident told the Herald.

The park has been a problem for years because of its proximity to the complex and the fact it offers several escape routes for troublemakers. A decade ago the council tried to curb the problem by trimming tree canopies more than a metre off the ground to discourage lurkers.

But the resident says it’s not been enough and they’ve been pushing to have lights installed for years, without luck.

Locals did get bollards to stop druggies parking on the edge of the park this week—but only because a council contractor trimmed the one tree that locals had wanted left alone.

The verge tree’s canopy had discouraged people parking next to homes, and the resident says she was in tears when she called the parks department to complain about the consequences of losing that small protection.

by STEVE GRANT