Parents in a Pembroke neighbourhood want Government to know "back of town children matter too!''.

Two mothers yesterday claimed housing officials had failed to carry through on a promise to turn an overgrown, vacant lot in the area into a children's playground.

Several of the houses in the Middle Town Lane area were owned by Government.

But there was not a playground in site, mother-of-three Ms Kim Lindo complained yesterday.

Middle Town was home to a large number of small children, including Bermuda's only quintuplets who live in a Government-owned home with their parents Mr.

and Mrs. Troy Smith, she pointed out.

One house in the area, which is split into apartments, was home to as many as 19 children, Ms Lindo said.

Ms Lindo, who is nanny to the Smiths' four surviving quins, was critical of the fact Government had rebuilt the playground at Shelly Bay, but ignored Middle Town where dozens of children lived.

"Whose children really benefit from the (Shelly Bay) playground?,'' she asked.

"I don't understand the logic of building a playground when there was already one there and when there were other more beneficial places to put it.'' Most of the residents in Shelly Bay had "pretty nice houses and most of them have nice yards'', she noted. But hardly any of the houses on Middle Town Lane had backyards.

Furthermore, access to the Shelly Bay Park was difficult for people with children and no car.

Children in the Middle Town neighbourhood had resorted to playing in the road, Ms Lindo said.

She added that the nearby Parsons Road playground was too dangerous to walk to with kids and strollers due to the lack of sidewalks.

Another mother-of-three said people were getting so fed up with the kids playing in the road that they were driving through the area in an increasingly dangerous manner.

"It's a fairly busy road and people come speeding through,'' she said.

"And the men get rude with the children and (swear at them). One child almost got struck the other day.'' Ms Lindo said according to longtime residents of the area, Government had bought the vacant lot and had said it would turn it into a playground.

Two years ago it was cleared and flattened for kids to play on. But it was apparently left to fall apart, she said, and no swings or slides were ever erected.

"So far the land has become an overgrown lot littered with debris and is unfit for the children to walk through, let alone play on,'' she said. "No one is asking for anything elaborate, just somewhere to run and play, swings to swing on, ropes to climb, grass to walk on.'' The Housing Corporation regularly cut the lawns of its properties, but ignored the vacant lot, which was now strewn with junk and was impossible to walk through, she added.

Officials from the Housing Corporation could not be reached for comment.

MS KIM LINDO -- `Kids have nowhere to play.'