Claims by a Government Minister that a community park is now ?98 percent complete? have been rubbished by one park user.

And the arear resident said that, while the park will be appreciated when it finally is complete, Government needs to do a lot more through its Community Areas Programme (CAP) to improve life in the neighbourhood.

Last week Environment Minister Neletha Butterfield said the new William Wilson Park in North Village was ?98 percent complete and ready for sign-off by the Environment Ministry?.

But yesterday resident Carla Crosdale gave a tour of the new facility and pointed out unfinished work, which included:

No children?s swings, although a framework for the swings is now standing.

A concrete foundation where a children?s roundabout should be.

Weeds and litter covering the area.

n A lack of proper access. Large obelisk-concrete fixtures have been ?planted? forcing patrons to weave sideways through them to gain access to the area.

No stairs. The steep slope leading down to the park from St. Monica?s Road is covered in loose gravel.

Ms Crosdale, who has been living in the area for five years and regularly visits the park with four children in her charge, said she was grateful for the open space in which children can play freely.

But she added that the area was not safe and that more needed to be done before the park could in any way be described as complete.

As areporter sat on the concrete wall in the park and watched the children play, Ms Crosdale said she would never let her boys come to the park on their own.

?It?s not safe,? she said, shaking her head.

Although the park is small, the area around it is overgrown with weeds and litter.

She said she keeps reminding the boys not to go into this area, but one of them has already picked up a piece of broken glass and has thrown it across this overgrown area.

When asked how she got her stroller with four little boys in it to the park area down below she laughed. ?With great difficulty ? I thought they were going to put some stairs in or something, but this is it. I just had to come over the plants on top there,? she said.

There has been some attempt to plant some shrubs and obviously they will never grow if mothers with strollers need to go over them to gain access to the park.

And when asked if anyone from Government has ever been to St. Monica?s Road to talk to residents, she said she did not know, but added that she?s never seen them, or spoken to them.

No one has ever asked her what she thinks about the North Village community, or how the area can be changed for the better, she said.

But, she said, it will take more than a park.

?What the area really needs is a laundromat, or a school, or for someone to take those boys off the wall up there,? she said.

The Chairman of the North Village Community Trust, Major Kenneth Dill, is currently on vacation and could not be contacted to find out when the park will be completed and officially opened.