VANDALS have caused nearly £5,000-worth of damage to an ornamental fountain in the centre of a Darlington park.

Three terracotta urns have been kicked from the recently restored Pierremont fountain, in South Park.

The Victorian parkland began a revival in 2003 after £3.9m in Lottery funding was granted to revamp the site with new railings, gateways and maintenance work to thousands of trees.

But vandals have now destroyed one of the park's centrepiece features.

Park manager Paul Place said: "It's a real shame that this has happened - the people of Darlington are the victims of this.

"We have really started to get on top of the anti-social behaviour problems in the park, and we have had a heck of a lot of success.

"Sadly, a mindless minority are trying to spoil things for others

"In order to supply more protection, we have now installed a speaker in the CCTV camera so we are a bit more flexible with what we can do."

Specialists will repair three of the 12 terracotta urns. The work is to take up to ten weeks.

Mr Place said: "As part of the restoration of South Park, the fountain was completely restored. It had fallen into disrepair over the years so we gave it a complete restoration, using historic photos and old records.

"The urns will now need to be recast in terracotta, and it's quite a complicated process so it will take some time to complete."

Sandra Manners, chairwoman of the Park East community partnership, said: "There is a problem with vandalism at South Park. The fountain is really beautiful but the kids keep knocking things off it. The cameras there don't seem to pick the vandalism up."

A Darlington Borough Council spokesman said anti-social behaviour in South Park has decreased over the past two years, but wardens would increase patrols to tackle vandalism