THE head of an environmental charity in Hyndburn has vowed his volunteers will not be beaten by vandals.

Mike Stapleford, from the Prospects Foundation, spoke out after it was revealed youths had caused more than £2,000 in damage to Foxhill Bank Nature Reserve, Oswaldtwistle, managed by Lancashire Wildlife Trust.

And he said some of his group's projects, involving an army of volunteers from across the borough, had also been targeted by vicious yobs.

In recent weeks, polythene tunnels used to grow trees from seeds at its Tinker Brook nursery, Rhoden Road, Oswaldtwistle, have been damaged and improvement work to the canal area in Clayton-le-Moors has been attacked.

Mr Stapleford said: "Unfortunately, a lot of the areas we are working on are off-site and we can't have someone there 24 hours a day, so vandals have free reign to do what they want. The problems seem to get worse during the summer holidays.

"Our projects are normally funded by grants and if things get broken or damaged it is very difficult to get them repaired, especially when it happens over and over again.

"It is very demoralising for the volunteers who give up their time to do work to improve their communities.

You can get a bit cynical when you are trying to do something positive for your community and the people living in it are going out and wrecking it."

But he agreed with John Lamb, Lancashire Wildlife Trust's conservation officer for East Lancashire, that they would not be beaten by the vandals.

Mr Lamb said he was determined to find funding to replace a dipping platform that was destroyed by arsonists at Foxhill Bank on Monday.

He said: "It is well over £2,000 worth of work that has gone up in smoke. The site is well-used by local people and many of them will be upset by what has happened.

"But we are not going to be defeated by mindless vandals. I am going to recommend to the management committee when it meets on Monday that we look for the funding to replace it."