Locals reclaim neighbourhood

The last straw that galvanised Mt Roskill community nurse Avon Lines into action was a 5-year-old who asked her what he had picked up in his hand at the local Fearon Park.

"It was a syringe," she says. "I just couldn't take that. I was absolutely furious. So I got all the mums to come off the playground and I literally got on my hands and knees and searched all the bank and came up with a whole lot of them."

Lines, 62, has never been one to hope someone else will do what needs to be done. Mt Roskill community constable Graeme Bruges describes her as a "tenacious, fiery woman with a strong sense of social justice that comes from her Romany ancestry".

"Don't ever cross her," he warns. "A few males three times her size have tried that and come off second-best."

Lines had been worried about the "street kids and junkies" who used Fearon Park even before the 5-year-old approached her. After that she went straight to Housing NZ community development worker Charlotte Esser, and then to Bruges. Both agreed to help.

"He [Bruges] said if we were prepared to go door-to-door, he would give us a letter, which he did," says Lines. "We went door-to-door and said we were trying to get Neighbourhood Support up and running.

"Well, it snowballed from Keystone Ave to Donald Cres, Cleghorn Ave, Bridgman Ave, Fearon Ave. We have just literally become the eyes and ears of the community for the police."

Neighbourhood Support Auckland chairman Kevin Hicks says the movement has evolved from what used to be a division of the police called Neighbourhood Watch.

He says 80,000 people belong to the network in Auckland City alone, covering between 20 and 40 per cent of all households.

In Fearon Park, Lines and her colleagues have organised "park trains" to help local families reclaim their neighbourhood.

"The mums ring one another and say, 'I'm taking my kids to the park, how about you come along and we take all the kids to the park?"' she says.

Bruges says he used to hear constant calls on the police radio to incidents around Fearon Park.

"I'm just not hearing jobs there now," he says. "There's no doubt that it's safer."

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