THE £100,000 refurbishment of a community centre will have to go back to the drawing board after the building was ransacked by vandals.

Work on the Bodelwyddan Community Centre on Swn Y Dail has been disrupted – less than a week after work started on Monday, June, 18 – following repeated acts of vandalism, calling into question security measures on the project.

Local town and county councillor Richard Mainon said: “It’s wanton vandalism. They’ve destroyed the fascia, ripped up bollards and used children’s paint to do mindless damage.

“The people responsible seem to think that they’re somehow “sticking it to the man”, but they’re actually just destroying their own asset.

“Sadly, this isn’t the first incident. In the last two weeks we have had ‘Shain, Sara, Helen and Dant’ spray-painted on the front of the building.

“The window in the ladies’ loo is now sealed shut and needs replacing as it is the repeated point of attack for the kids who want access.”

He added: “Our security fencing that was an integral part of our Christmas festivities has been stolen in recent weeks and the builders have had their fencing damaged in the last week by children climbing.

“Now the builders are screwing doors shut and want to discuss scaling back the nice stuff in favour of prison-like security.”

The project’s scheduled completion for between the last week of July and first week of August has now been delayed by the incidents on Wednesday, June 20 and last weekend.

Cllr Mainon said: “Memories will not be made at the centre this year I’m afraid.”

The refurbishment of the community centre is being rolled out in three phases.

The first phase intends to replace the village hall part of the centre, traditionally reserved for town council use only, removing brickwork from the 1970s erected around the wooden Kinmel camp army billet to create a modern, purpose-built meeting room for use by Citizens Advice and community navigators.

The second phase will focus on new bathrooms – including a fully coded disabled bathroom and baby-changing facilities – and hot running water for the first time in seven years, as well as a separate sports changing room with a further a unisex bathroom and enclosed showers.

The final phase would introduce central heating and an audio visual feature wall for presentations, opening up the centre for commercial hire.

Cllr Mainon added: “We wanted to bring services like Citizen’s Advice to Bodelwyddan, to raise aspiration and help people help themselves without having to travel to Rhyl.

“The plan is as soon as the hall and rooms are finished that a new charity, Friends of Bodelwyddan, will take the building off the town council council and cover the running of the building.

“Hopefully the commercial hiring of the meeting room will generate enough income to cover the costs of the hall, so that when a charitable group looks to engage with the community the venue could potentially be offered with no charge.

“But, if the income is constantly used for repair or if the charity is constantly needing grants from the town council – who, of course, collect that cash from Bodelwyddan residents through their council tax – then I will consider the project an expensive failure.

To fund the project, the town council elected to save costs on security measures, as well as removing emergency shutters and double height railings to increase natural lighting and create a more pleasant community space.

Cllr Mainon said: “When it became clear that finances would be tight for the project, the town council made the brave decision to scale back the security measures and to present the building to prospective hirers as a much-loved building that the community are proud of.

“This now seems like an utter folly and it’s a shame that the whole scheme now needs to go back to the drawing board.

“Why spend £100,000 of the taxpayers money just to whack a great big chain on it and seal it up like Fort Knox?

“Having seen the outcry from the village and the encouragement to continue, we will knuckle down as a council and do our best to make good a disappointing situation.”

An investigation by North Wales Police into the incident is ongoing.

Anyone with any information is urged to call 101 and quote reference W085546.