VANDALS destroyed years of voluntary work in a matter of minutes when they ran riot in a renovated Bournemouth community park.

They struck on Wednesday night at the Moore Avenue Community Park in West Howe.

Voluntary staff woke up to find 100 bulbs ripped from flowerbeds and memorial benches attacked in the park's quiet' corner.

The park had been restored almost entirely by volunteers over the last three years in tandem with the West Howe Network organisation.

Stan Hurst, caretaker for the organisation, said: "We volunteer all our spare time to this area and to find acts of mindless vandalism such as this breaks my heart.

"It's not just the vandalism but what these people have done to spoil and wreck an area that would have benefited everyone.

"We don't have any more money to replace these bulbs and we all feel extremely angry that this has happened."

The park was handed a prestigious Green Flag award last year and has become an area of community pride. It has a children's play area and multi-use games arena.

All the money spent on the park was raised by the volunteers from the Network Shop, who applied for grants and ran fundraising events.

"A lot of work has gone into the park and a lot of the volunteers are elderly," said Steve Tarrant, manager of the West Howe Network.

"You can't help but admire them. They are just people who live in the community and are trying to make it better."

The network, founded six years ago, offers services for the community from housing advice and debt management to running subsidised coach trips.