VANDALS have wrecked a children's play area in Milnsbridge - less than 12 months after it was completed.

Kirklees Council spent £24,000 creating the playground at the Botham Hall recreation ground, off Glastonbury Drive.

The playground included new swings, slides, seesaws and was covered in a special surface to prevent injury.

But vandals have ripped up the expensive rubber surface, damaged several swings and written obscene graffiti on the play surfaces.

John Fletcher, parks and open spaces manager for Kirklees Council, said

the rubber protective surface cost £55 a square metre.

"It deeply saddens me that we have an element in society that wants to wreck everything that is good,' he added.

"But no matter how hard they try we will battle against them."

Mr Fletcher said the council's playground inspection team had already started to repair the damage.