Abandoned. Unwanted. Unloved. Neglected. Eyesore.
Just some of the words used by students and teachers disgruntled by Wellington High’s abandoned netball/tennis courts. After years of neglect, potholes have appeared, among other safety hazards as plant life begins to break through the concrete coating of the courts, turning the area into a generic dystopia of what earth cities will look like without human life.
Upon first observation Wellington High School’s abandoned bottom netball facility resembles a the floor of your average teenage dwelling.
Walking into the courts students are confronted with a pile of deserted clothing, carelessly thrown about the entryway. Abandoned McDonald’s cups scatter the footpath.
But this is only the first of many piles of garbage.
It would appear the citizens of Wellington are using this deserted sporting area as the city’s second scrapyard.
And it makes perfect sense. Why make the long, costly trip to the City Council’s official user-pays scrapyard in Happy Valley when there is a neglected area right outside your home?
School teacher Dennis Wright says the area has had a long history with unseemly behaviour, including illegal activity. Wright says Wellington High is sometimes vocal that it doesn’t have enough room for outdoor activity, and suggests the school should take more care to look after and use the forgotten area.
But school students don’t see the scrapyard as all bad.
Year 13 student Jaquille Haribhai-Thompson says the tendency of surrounding citizens to leave their unwanted items at the netball courts has been useful. He recalls a time he found a well-functioning printer laying about on the lower courts. Taking it was “probably the most productive thing we’ve ever done at lunchtime” he said.
Next to the printer lay abandoned couch. “We’ve taken some chairs from the courts in the past and given them to the school” Jaquille recalls.
“We didn’t taken this couch because it smelled of cat pee” added fellow Year 13 student Josh Weir.
Visiting the courts on Wednesday Jaquille says he found a Television, a couch, a perfectly clean mattress, two chairs and a chest of draws. He laughs as he remembers what he found with this collection of items; a note from a girlfriend kicking her partner out of home. “Here’s your stuff” it said.
Everything was in mint condition apart from the Television, which was smashed into thousands of pieces scattered along the bottom court, proving an environmental hazard.
Some in the school are determined to see the area fixed up.
It would be a big job.
Broken fencing, cracked concrete and a rusting gate would be no cheap fix.
But a collection of students and staff say the area must be rebuilt, and that the area is doing damage to the school’s reputation. “Kids from Mount Cook school walk past there” says student Sarah Asher, “their parents will see it and decide not to send their kids here”.
Fellow student Kasey McDonnell agrees, and says it makes the school look careless. He suggests that we might as well make the rest of the school “like the courts” if that’s how we want to look to people not associated with the school.
Written By Bennett M
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