The completion of the chain mesh fence will cost about $13,000, which will be taken from council’s development fund.

Many of the parents who had publicly expressed concerns for children’s safety at the park attended Tuesday night’s council meeting to see the results of their campaign first-hand.

A small ripple of applause was heard as mayor Mike Neville announced the fence would be completed.

Tegan Le Page, moderator of the Facebook group “Fence Griffith City Park before a tragedy occurs”, said the decision had given her a sense of relief.

“I am really happy with the result – it just shows that if you contact councillors, they really do listen to the community,” Ms Le Page said.

“I have had a lot of comments from people saying they can’t wait to take their children back to the park when the fence goes up.

“It will just put our minds at ease that the park is a little bit safer. Parents do have to be responsible for their kids but it only takes a split second for an accident to happen and even the best-supervised kids can get into a bit of mischief at times.”

Within an hour of Ms Le Page announcing the fence would be built on Facebook, her post had 19 “likes” and six congratulatory comments.

But the fence saga may not be over yet.

While the councillors all chose to vote in favour of the fence, many expressed concerns their decision to bow to public pressure would set a precedent for further cases.

“I will support this motion because I believe we, as a council, have a responsibility – and we have put in a facility that attracts young people to that area,” Cr Allan Bennett said.

“My concern is, where does this stop? Willow Park has a toilet block, picnic tables and a barbecue area which attracts families –do we need to fence that, too?

“We’re opening a huge can of worms and I’m afraid this will potentially come back and bite us very hard.”

Cr Bennett’s doubts came to a head almost immediately when two community members requested further fencing at City Park during public question time.

Ron Pattison asked for the park to be fenced along Kookora Street to protect children from traffic on the busy road, while Peter Knox requested fencing along the Community Gardens side of the canal.

Cr Neville said he would not support any future motion for further fencing at City Park.

He said construction of the approved fence would start as soon as possible.