By Safira Ali

Last updated 15:01, Thursday, 21 August 2008

VANDALS have caused thousands of pounds worth of damage to Workington Golf Club.

• View more pictures...

Rampage: Vandalism at Workington Golf Club

Police believe the vandals stole a JCB type machine and used it to uproot mature trees and ruin the course on Branthwaite Road between Tuesday night and yesterday morning.

Head gardener at the club Tony Fielding described the damage as “unbelievable”. He estimated it would cost thousands of pounds to clean up and repair the course.

Mr Fielding said: “It looks like someone has been having fun with the dumper truck.

“I have worked here for 22 years and I have never seen anything like this before. It is unbelievable.

“We think it was a large machine similar to a JCB. It happened overnight to a large area.

“It was random. They didn’t attack just one area, but went all around the course.

“It was an act of vandalism. It is the first time we have had something on this scale. The mature trees were about 20 years old. They are flattened and cut up. How do you put a value on damage to mature trees?”

“We think it was a six-ton dumper truck taken from one of the sites for the new bypass.”

He added that the golf club will still be open for use, but it will take some time to clear away all the wreckage.

“It will take a few weeks to clean up the damage,” he said. “We are asking people to take care around the plantations because some of the trees are leaning.

“The vandals didn’t come around the club house way. If they had then the steward and stewardess who live in the bungalow would have seen them. They came at the bottom of the site. There is a ditch there to stop cars getting onto the site, but it wouldn’t stop a dumper truck going through.

“The vandals had driven over the trees, uprooted them and driven on top of them to flatten them. They are a foot in diameter, but they have been rammed until they fell down and the bark came off them.”

Police said they had had a report of extensive damage to the golf course overnight on Wednesday morning. They said they thought a plant machine had been stolen and used to cause the damage. Detectives are investigating the case.

SAli@cngroup.co.uk