Vandals attack and damage open air arts sculptures in Sleaford as soon as repairs are made

Vandals have wrecked artwork installed in a Sleaford nature area twice in two weeks.

Jessica Notley leads a group of volunteers who meet monthly at The Nettles open air arts area near the leisure centre beside the River Slea.

When the group arrived on Monday they were met with a sad and terrible mess. Three fence panels were totally missing, being dumped in the river, a stone and wire bench had been cut apart and the stones scattered everywhere and a concrete sculpture picked at and crumbling.

Jessica said: “We are all gutted as we put a lot of work into keeping the area welcoming and special. We are all really depressed - it is such a lovely area and sadly this has put a downer on everything.”

She said chunks of the really thick wire had actually been cut out of the bench. “We don’t know if we will be able to put it right as it is an artist’s commissioned piece of work,” she said. Jessica believes it first happened in the last two weeks.

Then arriving yesterday (Tuesday) to check on it she discovered all their repair work had been undone by vandals overnight. “I didn’t expect it to happen again quite so soon,” she said, appealing for locals to report anything to police on 101.

Marion Sanders of ArtsNK, which is responsible for The Nettles, said it is soul destroying but they will plough in developing and maintaining the area: “Everyone puts so much effort into making it nice. If you see anybody not treating it well, report it.”