Vandals carry out four week campaign of destruction at Lytham park

Trouble began four weeks ago at Park View 4 U, just as lockdown restrictions began to lift.

Since then, the park has been plagued by unruly youths gathering late at night to wreak havoc on park property, including a new outdoor toddlers' play area that has had to be removed due to health and safety risks.

A carved memorial bench, three fences, a bug hotel, a storytelling chair, an outdoor classroom structure, eight wooden carved mushrooms and a 'mud kitchen' for toddlers have been damaged so far - some beyond repair.

Park ranger Julie Norman said: "It has been happening in the evenings over the past four weeks. Wooden structures around the park have been damaged. The most upsetting was the memorial bench to one of our volunteers. The bench has been there three years, but some of the other things that have been destroyed have been there for nine or 10 years.

"Some things will be fixable, but eight carved mushrooms we had have been stolen. A lot of the stuff has been damaged beyond repair so I suspect we will have to pay to replace them, which isn't good for the charity because we would rather use our funds on new activities for the park.

"Our volunteers work hard on maintaining the area so it will be upsetting for them."

The vandalism has been reported to Lancashire police and CCTV shared.

Julie said: "They have promised that they will put more patrols on the park in the evenings, but they are so busy right now because of the summer season, and we are a tourism town.

"Just before lockdown we created a mud kitchen that has been vandalised. That will be upsetting for all the families that used it, because it was so popular. There's nothing left of it. The tables and chairs have been smashed. We had to remove it for health and safety reasons.

"The cost of it all will be something we won't be able to place until autumn. I hope that, come the autumn, these issues will stop."