Historic shelter trashed in another vandal attack

The well-known shelter on St Annes promenade was targeted by yobs who smashed glass panels in an attack on Sunday night.

The Grade-2 listed building was also targeted in July last year, when more than a dozen glass panels were broken, causing £2,300 of damage.

Further damage was caused in March 2012, February and May 2013, and July, August and November 2014.

Fylde community volunteer Andrew Noble said: “It’s a real shame. Every week for the last three weeks there have been attacks on the Victorian shelter. This has happened very regularly over the last few years. The windows have been broken, there is glass everywhere and you can see the hole where the stone has gone through.

“Our tourist numbers are increasing and we have more people coming to our lovely resort, and when they see things like this it’s very off-putting.

“There is CCTV by the pier that can now look right along the promenade, but they’re not manned 24 hours a day, and these vandals seem to be operating at night.

“I don’t understand what they could possibly get from doing such a horrible thing. People may say it’s just a broken window, but it damages the whole resort’s image.

“It’s part of our heritage and our history.”

A Lancashire Police spokesman said: “We were called at around 1.30pm on Monday to reports that a Victorian shelter on the Promenade had been vandalised. A number of glass windows had been smashed.”

A Fylde Council spokesman was not able to provide a comment but did confirm staff had been able to clean up the smashed glass.