VANDALS have caused more than £1,000 worth of damage to a school's community eco-garden during the Easter holidays.

Pupils at St Ronan’s Primary in Innerleithen have spent the past year creating the edible community garden along with staff from the You Can Cook social enterprise.

But during the recent spring break vandals smashed their way into sheds, slashed a polytunnel and ran amok in the planting areas on two occasions.

Police were called to the St Ronan's Road school on the first Tuesday of the holidays after much of the damage was discovered.

And just five days later they were called back after a padlock was broken on a shed and further damage was done to the polytunnel.

Bosco Santimano from You Can Cook admitted the damage may lead to the garden being scrapped. He told us: “The loss to property is over £1000 and we are not sure what the long-term financial implications are.

“A lot of work has gone into this project from my staff, school and a few volunteers.

“Its frustrating that all the hard work is undone overnight by a mindless act of destruction.

“The children having returned from their holidays are not happy after seeing the extensive damage caused to their miracle garden and are feeling distraught and sad.”

Work began on the garden last spring as part of the Innerleithen Can Grow initiative.

As well as supplying salads and vegetables for the school kitchen it also provides space for gardening and composting classes.

But there have been several previous incidents of vandalism in the garden with crops regularly destroyed and damage to the shed and tunnel.

Mr Santimano hopes the community will rally and help bring the garden back to life following this latest incident. He added: “We would appeal to members of the community to come together and take ownership of this project for the sake of the children and the wider community in order to stop this ever happening again.”

Police were called to the school after the damage was first discovered on Tuesday, April 5.

Vandals entered the garden again overnight from Saturday, April 9 into the Sunday and further damage was caused to the polytunnel and shed.

A Police Scotland spokeswoman said: “We are following a positive line of enquiry at the moment but if anyone can assist us with information we would ask them to come forward.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact Police Scotland on 101.

St Ronan’s headteacher Keith Belleville said: “This is extremely frustrating as the whole school values the garden.”