A TALKING litter bin designed to stop children dropping rubbish has been trashed by vandals two days after it was installed.

The £500 animal-shaped bin in Blackburn's Queens Park playground had its voicebox ripped out.

The Queens Park support group worked for 12 months to raise enough cash to buy two bins which speak five different messages such as "Thank you very much. We do like your rubbish".

Members were so thrilled to finally win a grant from Blackburn with Darwen Council they held a huge party for 150 youngsters to unveil the bins.

The state-of-the-art bins, which were the first of their kind in East Lancashire, are operated by a light sensor which triggers a voice box when the light is blocked.

Group chairman Jack Yates is furious the group's hard work has been wasted.

He said: "The bins were a great success with the children. The community is going to be bitterly disappointed, especially since they have been struggling to raise money for this project for the last 12 months.

"The bin can't be repaired. We would have to buy a new one but that would cost £500 - money we just haven't got."

Queens Park Councillor Salim Mulla believes the damage was the work of bored youths. He said more police officers on the beat in the area would help keep would-be vandals in line.

He said: "This was such a brilliant scheme which we thought was going to be very popular with young children. It's really sad that somebody would want to do something like this.

"The person who did this should have a long, hard look at themselves because they've probably broken some young children's hearts.

"It would definitely benefit the area if we had a bigger police presence and officers patrolling the park in the evenings."

Police Inspector Michael Laraway said: "Depriving kids of a bit of fun for the sake of something that's going to be useless to the person is about as low as it gets.

"We realise parks are vulnerable because parts are often secluded. It is difficult to check the entire area at night but we can't be in one place 24-7.

"We do use a helicopter to get an overview of a park to see if there's any trouble hotspots and we have worked with the council to make it more difficult for people to do things like this by cutting foliage back."

Anyone with information about the vandalism should call police on 01254 51212 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.