East Renfrewshire Council has hit out at the vandals who targeted the new play area in Barrhead’s Cowan Park.

Earlier this year the park benefitted from major investment totalling £250,000 to improve the facilities available for the community.

Now, following an incident of vandalism on October 30, further public funds will have to be used to repair the damage.

Councillor Alan Lafferty, convener for environment, said: “I was appalled to see the damage caused to the fantastic play area we had only recently opened in Cowan Park.

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"A significant amount of money was invested in the works and to have to carry out costly repairs so soon is extremely disappointing.

"Vandalism to our public spaces is completely unacceptable; it impacts directly on our annual budget and in this instance prevents residents from enjoying the facility.

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"We will do all we can to support Police Scotland with their enquiries.”

Local politicians have added their voices to the outrage over the vandalism. 

East Renfrewshire MP, Paul masterton, said: "This is unbelievable. Cowan Park had received much needed investment and turned into a great facility for local kids by the Council - my two absolutely loved playing on all the new kit.

"For this sort of damage to be done beggars belief. The money that will need to be spent to repair this could be used for many other things and I'm sure we all hope those responsible are caught."

If anyone has any information related to the incident, they should contact Police Scotland on 101.