LATE-NIGHT vandals have wreaked major damage on Bowness bandstand, and the structure may have to be redesigned to make it more robust, say community figures.

Windermere parish councillor Jim Morphet said that only eight out of the 77 vertical wooden railings were now left standing after a recent spate of vandalism on Friday nights, and last Saturday night, on The Glebe. Complete sections of the bandstand rails have been wrenched out and flung on top of hedges near the tennis courts.

"It must have required a substantial effort," Coun Morphet told the Gazette. "They've tried to kick nearly every rail out, and when they've succeeded in doing that they've kicked out the horizontal rail."

Coun Morphet said "a considerable number of broken bottles and cans" had littered the scene after each attack, and the bandstand had now been cordoned off by Continental Landscapes.

Windermere Parish Council was "very disappointed and upset" about the vandalism, he stressed, because the bandstand was such a feature of Bowness.

Windermere Community Safety Partnership, com-prising councils, police, clubs, societies and individuals, has been discussing the future of the bandstand, which has been targeted by vandals for some years.

Describing the vandalism as "disgraceful", chairman Richard Ogden said the partnership had considered ideas such as security lighting and redesigning the bandstand to make it more vandal-proof, and had requested the police to pay special attention to the area, especially at weekends.

"The real tragedy is the bandstand is being destroyed by repeated vandalism and it's believed that it's unfortunately local youths that do it," said Coun Ogden.

He said the partnership under-stood South Lakeland District Council had spent more than £3,000 repairing the bandstand last year. The partnership hopes to meet later this month to look at ideas such as relocating the bandstand, or replacing it with a more vandal-proof structure. "It would be sad, but we do not want to lose the facility because we are told there are a number of bands who would like to come and give concerts during the summer months."

Inspector Tudor Griffiths of Windermere police said high-visibility police patrols during the summer months had helped to cut disorder and anti-social behaviour by 30 per cent, and it was hoped to run similar operations this year to tackle issues such as vandalism at "hotspots" like The Glebe and the railway station.

Insp Griffiths said: "It's a minority of local youths probably involved who are causing the damage, but I wouldn't want the message to go out saying all the local youths in Windermere are of that ilk, because they're not."

He said police would "do their utmost" to catch the culprits, and added the long-term solution might be to replace the "fairly flimsy" structure with a more robust design, possibly discreetly lit.

January 10, 2003 11:02