Westhoughton: Disgust as bin set alight and dog poo smeared over park

The play park off St James Street in Daisy Hill was recently left in a mess after a bin was set alight, rubbish was 'strewn everywhere' and dog poo was smeared around it.

A clean-up effort by the council's waste team and volunteers has now cleared the mess, but locals still cannot believethat someone would do something so disgusting.

The 'well-used' playground was vandalised on the weekend of September 23-24 and then cleaned up on the Monday, September 25. 

Cllr David Chadwick of Westhoughton South has asked for a replacement bin to be put in the place of the vandalised one and reported the incident to the police.

A burnt-out bin and rubbish strewn over the grass (Image: Cllr David Chadwick)
He says Greater Manchester Police are set to submit an arson report and are looking to identify the offenders.

Cllr Chadwick said: "It was horrendous. I don't envy our teams who have to clean up these things.

"It is not something any person should be expected to do.

"I know that the teams that do this are fabulous. It is a horrible task we ask them to do, I know they get paid, but I do commend the work they do.

"I will go out of my way to thank them, as the neighbourhood would be a lot worse without them."

The park after having been cleaned (Image: Cllr David Chadwick)

He continued: "Police are trying to identify the persons responsible. I have not yet had any information from the police as to whether they have managed to take them down. 

"I see the Westhoughton and Horwich policing team around Westhoughton regularly. 

"The sergeant responsible for the Westhoughton for the team, they are very thorough, organised and responsible. Fingers crossed they manage to catch those who did this.

"I have an eight-year-old grandson, I wouldn't want for him to play on that playground and find that stuff." 

This comes after vandals broke into cars in Westhoughton on more than one occasion over the summer. 

Multiple cars had their windows smashed in and one car had AirPods stolen from it. 

Police launched an investigation into the vandalism and put out an appeal.