Pokemon Go: Gold Coast park wrecked by players of smartphone game causing $14,000 damage

POKEMON have been blamed for an eye-watering amount of damage done to a Gold Coast park. The five-figure repair bill has set city hall on a collision course with gaming giant Nintendo.

A GOLD Coast councillor is taking on one of world’s biggest gaming giants because Pokemon “maniacs” keep trampling on grass and wrecking a nature strip.

Hermann Vorster, who admits to being a Pokemon “maniac’’ himself, has written to Nintendo in Japan to ask the company to remove a Robina park from its worldwide phenomenon, Pokemon Go.

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Poke maniacs are allegedly behind damage to a Gold Coast park.

Game buffs have been driving to Lake Lomandra Park in Olympus Dr to “capture” fictional characters in the smartphone game.

Players go to public locations and use their phone to search for the creatures, including the famous electric mouse Pikachu, with the device vibrating as they appear.

Damage to Robina’s Lake Lomandra Park.

Cr Vorster says some have been parking vehicles illegally and have killed trees and other vegetation, causing $14,000 damage.

The park is one of thousands of locations worldwide where the characters congregate and give players points.

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Pokemon has been popular worldwide for more than 20 years.

While Pokemon Go was at its height two years ago, 5 million people still play it daily across the world.

“While it is wonderful to see Poke-mania raging on like a flame burst from a level 32 Charizard (a winged lizard character), the latest incarnation of Pokemon does not come without its social costs,” Cr Vorster wrote in his letter to Nintendo.

Cr Hermann Vorster with some of the damaged turf.

“A Pokemon Go location has induced a significant amount of unlawful parking on a road reserve which appears to have compacted soil to the point nearby where very beautiful trees have now failed and died.

“As someone who loves trees as much as any Trevenant (a tree character), I secured $14,000 to replace the trees, rehabilitate the soil and install yellow lines along the road but this seems to be all for nought as residents tell me the poke maniacs persist.”

Pokemon are known to congretate in a Robina park, bringing in plenty of fans who are causing damage.

Cr Vorster has asked Nintendo to help lobby the game’s original developer, Niantic, to relocate the Pokemon to a “safer location” such as Varsity Lakes’ Frascott Park.

“In fact, I would love for Frascott Park to become an epicentre of the Pokemon Go universe and would welcome an opportunity to work with Nintendo to promote it.”

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Pokemon players are causing plenty of issue in this Robina park

It is not the first time Cr Vorster has had issues with Pokemon fans. In 2016 he blasted players for game-themed graffiti through Varsity Lakes.

Pokemon the video game was created in 1996. It focuses on trainers capturing and training “pocket monsters” to battle each other.