VANDALS are causing hundreds of pounds of damage by breaking glass in a village bus shelter near Bicester.

The shelter in Caversfield has been repeatedly targeted by vandals, with glass panes smashed at least twice.

More than £700 of damage has been totted up at the Caversfield Turn shelter, which was fixed, only for vandals to attack it again the following day.

Thames Valley Police has since been regularly patrolling the area.

Caversfield parish clerk Jane Olds said: “We had one attack in May. It was a very minor hole which could have come from a car flicking something up.

“We let it go, and I was just in the middle of arranging the insurance and we had a report of another attack, which was definitely deliberate, on another pane. The insurance said we could get it fixed immediately, but that did cost us a £100 excess.”

The glass panes were replaced on Wednesday, June 22, and by the morning one panel had been smashed again.

Costs for the smashes have totalled nearly £700, a figure that was given before the most recent attack some time over the weekend of July 25/26.

Mrs Olds added: “I am not going to arrange for it to be replaced until at least the schools have gone back.

“There is no point spending any more of the parish council’s funds on something which is just going to get damaged again. I suspect kids will be slightly more watched once they are back at school and by then it will be darker in the evenings so kids won’t be out as much.

“This is not the only thing which has happened, though.

“On Monday, July 20, there was also loads of graffiti that appeared also on the bus stop, in the children’s playground of the Garden Quarter and on the Fringford Road – some of it actually on the road – and the white entrance gates. It has not really been an issue before.”

The parish council is also asking residents to be vigilant.