Yahoo News Smashed pedestrian crossing with strange warning for Kent County Council from 'person with grudge'
A pedestrian crossing in Kent has been smashed with an angry warning left for Kent County Council. The scene sparked a councillor for the area to share his own message - telling the person who "holds a grudge" to stop as it put children's lives in danger.
And Kent County Council said the "malicious damage" to the crossing facilities there had been happening since October 2021. The shattered equipment had a message in cut-out words which suggested the perpetrator has beef with the council going back 12 years. It read: "KCC this is the last of the button. This cost you big time. You know what you did in 2012."
The damage was done to the crossing in Cage Green near Tonbridge on Monday and was photographed by a teacher. It is on Shipbourne Road near White Cottage Road, with Leigh Academy Hugh Christie and Cage Green Primary School not far away
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The crossing has had to be switched off and because of the nature of the message, council staff can not be put at risk by going to fix it, the council told KentLive.
Mark Hood, a Green Party councillor for Tonbridge division on Kent County Council and Judd ward on Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council, told KentLive: "The vandalism to the crossing is targeted at the county council but it is damaging our community."
"It disproportionately puts children and the elderly at risk and there is a danger that we will need to replace the crossing with a lower specification which will disadvantage disabled residents. It is mindless destruction which, apart from the cost, puts lives at risk."
He said Kent County Council had £1.1billion of outstanding repairs to carry out to bring the highways network up to the required standard and "this level of additional cost doesn't help".
The money wasted on these repairs could be better spent elsewhere, he said. And this wasn't the first time the crossing has been attacked, with "mindless vandalism" occurring over a long period, costing thousands of pounds every time the box is damaged, said Councillor Hood.
He said: "We worked with officers and introduced CCTV which has failed to protect the crossing adequately and we frankly shouldn't need to use it."
'Someone knows who this is'
"Someone knows who this is and why they hold a grudge against KCC and we urge them to contact Kent Police on 101 to help us prevent further incidents."
A spokesperson for Kent County Council said: 'This is an ongoing case of malicious damage to pedestrian facilities which is ultimately, putting people's safety at risk. Kent Police are aware and have been involved since this type of activity started in October 2021."
"In this case, unfortunately we have needed to turn the crossing off as due to the nature of the message, we cannot put KCC staff at risk on site. We understand this affects several schools in the area and we are considering options to restore a safe crossing as soon as possible."
