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VANDALISM of Warrington's schools has cost the town's taxpayers almost half a million pounds in the past five years.

Figures from Warrington Borough Council, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, show the cost of vandalism rocketed by £37,582 between 2002 and 2007 to reach a shocking total of £455,788 in that period.

But Ann McCormack, head of service, business, planning and resources at the borough council said the figures are likely to be even higher because schools may not distinguish between vandalism and other routine building maintenance.

She added: "The specific categorisation in respect of security measures has only been utilised by five schools over recent years and the costs (mainly on CCTV) range from £8,387 to £83,876 at individual schools.

"It is Warrington Borough Council's view that much more has been spent on work such as fencing that may have been categorised under maintenance expenditure."

Jim Courtney, head teacher of Great Sankey Primary School, said vandalism at his school meant he had to delay improvements to deal with emergency repair work and fork out for preventative measures.

He said: "In the past couple of months we have had our windows smashed, our pond cover damaged, the fence damaged, lead stripped off our roof, three classrooms soaked by overflowing pipes after tennis balls were pushed into the drains and the new Wendy house vandalised.

"To make our site more secure, in the next few weeks we are spending another £3,000 on extending our CCTV cameras and £10,000 on perimeter fencing.

"We are saving up to keep those people out and it means we are not currently able to develop our classrooms as we would like as we are having to spend our money on this.

"We are wasting our money in many ways and so are other schools. In six years we have spent an absolute fortune."

With the quality of Warrington's education system being threatened by wanton destruction head teachers across the town are being put under pressure to organise their budgets to accommodate vandalism.

The majority of incidents happen at the weekends with smashing windows, damaging fencing, trampling gardens and graffiti being most the frequent offences. During the holidays arson attacks at schools also rise.

Inspector Andy Ross of Warrington Central NPU says: "Vandalism is a real problem for us, particularly during the school holidays when we put extra staff and effort into policing the areas around schools.

"Each school in my area now has its own CSO and we are delivering presentations to key stage pupils, that will include criminal damage and bullying, in an effort to educate children to not do it.

"One in four crimes committed is criminal damage. It is a big issue for us and I would ask people to ring us if they see any perpertrators on school property so we can do something about it."

If anyone witnesses trespassers on school grounds or people vandalising property call the police on 0845 4580000.

10:29am Friday 9th May 2008

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