Children who had worked tirelessly on a project to brighten up an alleyway close to their school have been left devastated after it was trashed by vandals for a second time.
Pupils at Peartree Spring Primary School in Stevenage had cleared and tidied an overgrown alleyway strewn with litter and carefully planted flowers inside car tyres, lining the alleyway off Peartree Park with colour.
The project, which was started by the school’s eco council a year ago, was finally completed at the end of June, but on Wednesday last week it was destroyed through an act of mindless vandalism.
The plants were pulled up and the tyres overturned, leaving compost scattered all over the path.
The following day it was cleaned up by parents and staff, replanted and back to looking lovely, only for it to be found wrecked again on Friday.
Disgusted parent Charlotte Nash said: “The children had worked tirelessly to campaign for the funds and permission to tidy up and add lovely flowers to the alley on the way to their school.
“Parents, staff and the PTA will continue to clean this up 1,000 times over if we have to. Whoever you are, you won’t win.
“This isn’t acceptable. Let’s make this alleyway too hot to handle, by letting every local person know about it.
“Please show some support for the children, whose community spirit will never be broken.”
Teacher Kim Taylor said: “We had been working on this project for the last year and it’s been a lot of work.
“The area was a big mess - overgrown and littered, and there wasn’t much path. The children worked hard to clear it and tidy it and then the council widened the path for us. The children even researched plants that would grow in the shade.
“I can’t believe people would do something like this when the children have worked so hard, and it’s such a great community project.
“The children are so disappointed and it’s disheartening.
“However, businesses have donated plants and the community support through social media has been great, which is something good to come out of this.
“We have no idea who is responsible for the vandalism, but we are looking at getting CCTV and putting other security measures in place.”
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