It has been fenced in, roughed up — critically and literally — and monitored by closed-circuit cameras.
Now the problem-plagued Princess Diana memorial fountain in London is to close again so that the surrounding turf can be re-laid, park officials said on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the Royal Parks said the granite oval in Hyde Park will shut for an unspecified period within the next few weeks to replace grass that has become sodden with water splashed from the fountain.
Workers also will install steel bars below bridges over the fountain to prevent children climbing under and becoming trapped.
”The risk is minimal, but we’re just making 100% sure,” the spokesperson said on customary condition of anonymity.
It is the second closure for the troubled £3,6-million fountain, unveiled amid great fanfare by Queen Elizabeth II on July 6. Within days, three people, including a child, slipped and injured themselves on the fountain’s unexpectedly slick base of Cornish granite. A freak summer windstorm clogged the water flow with leaves, flooding the surrounding fields.
The fountain was closed on July 22 to make it safer. Authorities roughened the granite surface to give it more traction, erected a security fence and cameras, posted guards — dismissively dubbed the ”paddle police” — and put up signs warning against walking or running in the water.
By the time it reopened on August 20, the fountain’s image as a reflective stream flowing into a tranquil pool had taken a beating, and maintenance costs had soared. The government estimates the cost of maintaining the fountain at £140 000 for the first year and £118 000 a year after that.
The fountain’s designer acknowledged she underestimated the number of people who would visit the memorial — or that many would run, splash and even wash their dogs in it.
”I feel we made a mistake letting people walk in the water. I apologise for that,” American architect Kathryn Gustafson told The Guardian newspaper.
”I thought people would picnic near the memorial, walk by and run their hands through the water, think about their lives, think about Diana,” she was quoted as saying.
Gustafson said the sheer number of visitors overwhelmed the structure.
”When it first opened, 5 000 people an hour came to see it,” she told The Guardian. ”How could you anticipate that? How can you solve a problem like that quickly? If it was a question of a stadium with 70 000 seats, that would be all right, but there was no precedent.
”The turf around the oval couldn’t survive those kinds of numbers. The level of management has had to be increased because of the level of people. We really underestimated that.”
Park officials said that with the onset of cooler autumn weather the number of visitors has fallen to about 1 000 a day on weekdays.
Gustafson said she hopes ”as things calm down that one day that fence will go away”.
”We just need time to solve the problems.” — Sapa-AP