By ALESHA CAPONE
THE Friends of the HV McKay Gardens in Sunshine want all residents to appreciate the spot’s heritage and beauty, rather than feel apprehensive about walking through the area.
The Friends group formed in 2007 to help restore and maintain the memorial Anderson Rd gardens, which are more than a century old.
Around six to eight months ago, a Friends of the HV McKay Gardens member found a large knife in the bushes while helping to clean rubbish.
In addition, a volunteer found a sock, with a rock inside it, among shrubbery at the gardens around five months ago.
Friends of the HV McKay Gardens member, Speroulla Christodoulou, said police had advised the group to keep a register of weapons they find in the area, although none had been found in recent months.
“The gardens are very beautiful and lots of people have worked hard to make them that way,” Ms Christodoulou said.
“We haven’t found any weapons in the past few months and the vandalism at the garden goes on but it has decreased.”
Her fellow group member Catherine McDonald said although a few individuals continued to graffiti the gardens’ structures and drop alcohol bottles in the area, “the people there mostly enjoy or walk through the gardens.”
“We are beautifying the gardens for the community and we want people to walk through,” she said.
“We should not be afraid to use them and only a very, very few people – who you could count on one hand – vandalise them, the rest just like to spend time in the gardens.”
Brimbank City Council’s director of infrastructure and environment, Paul Younis, said no weapons had been discovered in the HV McKay Gardens by council workers in the past 12 months.
“If residents discover weapons in public spaces they should contact the police,” he said.
