YOUNG arsonists have destroyed a £20,000 solid oak shelter built to provide youngsters on a troubled estate with a place to meet (Lynn Cox writes).

The shelter was erected in a park behind the White Road Community Centre on Chatham’s White Road Estate.

Youngsters on the estate designed the shelter with artist Mark Folds and a design team from environmental charity Groundwork Medway Swale.

The idea for the shelter came from the White Road youngsters, who said they wanted a place of their own to relax in.

Charlie Watson, Ground Medway Swale’s youth projects officer, said of the shelter before the arson attack:”The shelter provides a much-needed area for local people to hang out and socialise in all weathers. The designs came from the young people themselves and the feedback we are getting from the young people is very favourable.”

The project evolved through extensive consultation with local people, Medway Council representatives, the White Road Community Association and the police.

Aylesford Newsprint donated the £20,000 which paid for the design and installation of the shelter. The company’s contribution to the project was made through the Government’s landfill tax credits scheme.

Labour ward councillor Julie Shaw said: “The teenagers asked for somewhere they could hang out where they could meet in all weathers, so that’s why the shelter was built.”

But now the shelter’s huge wooden timber supports and burned and blackened.

Firefighters were called to the shelter twice on Friday after the young arsonists tried to burn it down.

A Fire Brigade spokesman said:”We were first called out just after 11am on Friday morning, then another crew had to attend again in the evening at about 7.30pm. Whoever lit the first fire probably went back for a second attempt.”

The shelter, which cost thousands of pounds to erect, is now a charred wreck and its flooring is totally destroyed.

The walls of the nearby community centre are also daubed with multi-coloured graffiti. One disgusted resident, who lives in Glencoe Road, said: “Everything the kids get put up for them they tear down again. It must have cost thousands to produce, the wood is of good quality and it looked lovely. I’m disgusted by their mindless behaviour. “

Cllr Shaw added: “The news that it has been burned down is sad. But the real tragedy is that I was not at all surprised it has been burned down. Whatever is given to the youngsters in the area they seem to destroy it soon afterwards.”