I really felt sorry about the victims of this unprovoked incident which puts courses at risk. It was totally senseless and the estimated cost of the damage was thousands of pounds.

FUTURE gardening courses at a Scarborough college are under threat after yobs ransacked a secluded garden.

The vandals struck some time between Saturday afternoon and Tuesday morning causing damage estimated at between £2,000 and £3,000. It was the latest in a spate of attacks since October.

Shirley Doyle, a gardening tutor at Yorkshire Coast College, said she feared that repeated attacks in the area would mean the college could not afford to repair the damage.

She said: “I felt awful when I saw the damage – the same as I felt last time. It seems to be that as soon as we get up and running they come along and trash it again.”

The latest attack resulted in the plastic panels of four greenhouses being smashed while two sheds were broken into and up to 100 plants destroyed.

Ms Doyle said building a fence around the site or installing a CCTV system to cover the area would be the only ways to give the garden better protection from intruders.

Other vandal attacks in the area have included:

• the names Joe, Dave, Shaun and Sam, as well as the initials DM, being inscribed into the wet cement of a garden pond;
• vandals caused damage estimated at thousands of pounds after they also damaged greenhouses, broke into sheds, daubed obscenities and trashed plants last October;
• six and a half years ago greenhouses at the college garden were targeted by vandals on three separate occasions, prompting the fitting of the toughened plastic panes.

The garden is used by a total of 20 young adults with learning difficulties or disabilities and Ms Doyle said she feared the area would cease to be a garden – effectively meaning an end to her courses.

A Scarborough Police spokeswoman said the matter was reported to officers yesterday morning and was now being investigated.

The area surrounding the college is popular with dog walkers and the garden is overlooked by both ScarboroughHospital and homes in Scalby Road.

From the Scarborough Evening News on Wednesday, May 27, 2009.