An Aberdeen community councillor has condemned vandals who damaged saplings in the city as “mindless idiots”.
Rhonda Reekie, the treasurer of Bucksburn and Newhills Community Council and community group, Brighter Bucksburn, spoke out after 10 trees were deliberately targeted in an area of community garden between Inverurie Road and Miltonford.
The rowan trees were planted last summer, and six of them were surrounded by wire mesh protectors, but that didn’t deter the vandals.
The smaller saplings appeared to have been cut with branch cutters, while the bigger, thicker saplings had been snapped into pieces.
Mrs Reekie was furious at the vandalism and responded: “It’s terrible that they have done it to all 10 trees.
“It’s not just somebody walking along who has got annoyed and given one of them a boot or something, they have actually gone there and cut all 10 trees.
“I don’t know what anyone has got against lots of nice colourful rowans. It’s not blocking anyone’s view, they’re just small things.
“Now all that is left is the straight trunk inside the mesh protector, so we’re going to have to replace them.
“The community council is having a meeting on Monday to discuss it, but it looks like we will have to replace them all.
“We are doing our best to try and make the area look nice and then some mindless idiots come along and do this.”
Mrs Reekie was further disappointed, because the damage means the community council will have to shell out to replace the trees.
She added: “It means our funds have been wasted. We have to apply for grants and we get donations from various groups to try and improve the area.
“When something like this happens, we have to go into our funds which could have been used on something else.
“It’s going to cost around £200 to replace them and that doesn’t include the wire mesh protectors, the time, the effort and the labour involved in replacing them.”
Police confirmed they are looking into the incident and appealed for anyone with information to contact 101.
