A VICAR who says his church is under siege from vandals has criticised councillors for failing to attend a problem-solving meeting with police.

The Rev John Parker, from the United Reformed Church in Northallerton, said he was deeply disappointed to hear the meeting had been cancelled due to lack of response from town and district councillors.

"We have been under siege with sustained attacks for months now," Mr Parker told a meeting of the town council on Monday. "Bricks have been thrown through windows during services and the situation is out of control. Our church is in holes and it's not good enough for the centre of Northallerton.

"This meeting was an attempt to tackle some of the problems and when I was told it was cancelled due to lack of response from councillors, I was extremely disappointed."

Mr Parker said the church had suffered attacks from vandals for the past three months, including two incidents which took place within days of each other in July, when more than 40 missiles were thrown, window frames were hammered out, and valuable Victorian stained glass windows broken.

The church was forced pay £1,000 to install mesh guards to protect the windows.

The Mayor of Northallerton, Coun Tony Hall, said he had been willing to attend the meeting and thought the limited response was due to short notice rather than a lack of concern for the church.

Other councillors agreed.

"I did respond to the invitation because I felt it would be a useful meeting," said Coun Hall. "It was not clear what the topic of the meeting was. I understood it was to be about the police in general, rather than about Northallerton or the church specifically.

"Obviously we want to give Mr Parker our support in tackling these problems, but in this case the notice of the meeting came just too late in the day for many people."

The council agreed to Mr Parker's request to ask for another meeting.