When we got there, I noticed that there was no gate, just a hole in the graffiti-covered fence. We were there for less than five minutes when a dog came running in where the gate should have been and started jumping around my son.

He is aware of the damage that some dogs can do to children from TV and newspaper reports and this dog did look like the ones featured in these reports. It was a female mongrel with definitely some pit bull blood in her ancestry.

At this stage I was pushing my daughter on the swings some yards away. He managed to stay calm and the dog then went sniffing around other mothers and children. It was only a few yards away but, if that dog had been aggressive and bitten my son, by the time I would have got to him it would have been too late and the damage would have been done.

The dog then spotted a football that a five or six-year-old girl had been playing with and ran to it. It punctured it in its jaws and ran out the gate, leaving the girl distraught about losing her ball. For my part, I was just glad that it was a football that the dog had clamped in its mouth and not some child's limb.

During this time there was no sign of the owner of the dog and it then ran off towards the middle of the park. I thought that it would be safe for my chhildren to play in an enclosed (supposedly) play park, but I was wrong and I decided to take them home.

On the way through the park we saw the dog with the ball and another dog running free in the main grasy area of the park. There were two young adults who looked as if they were "in charge" of the dogs but as I say, they were letting the dogs run free, playing with a ball that they obviously knew was not theirs.

I would hope that if any council employee sees someone with a dog running free in the park like this that they will pass on the relevant information to the council dog warden.

On a wider point, it seems pathetic to me that Larne Council cannot safely provide and maintain decent leisure facilities for the local ratepayers. As stated earlier, my son was at Sandy Bay for an Easter football training school which is well organised and he enjoys it greatly. But, how much better could it be if there were some investment and development to Sandy Bay?

The NIMBY brigade seem to have got their way again. It seems to me that the only time Larne people get together to organise something it's to say no to some proposed new development.

I have lived in Larne all my life and for the last 20 years I have worked in Belfast and I am always embarrassed to say where I come from. People outside of the town, even those who have never been here, think that it is a "dump" and a "dive". And to quote a frequently heard joke, "the best thing about Larne is the ferry out of it!"

I cannot disagree with these comments - how could I? Which other town in Northern Ireland of comparable size does not have a cinema or other entertainment facilities? And what other town creates such a fuss whenever a new proposal for retail, leisure or entertainment facility, which would be of benefit to the whole community, is put on the table?

If the council cannot bring Larne into the 21st century it should at least be able to maintain the 19th century ghost town that it is and that certain sections of the population want to keep it.

"Larne resident",
Name and address withheld.