VANDALS, some as young as six, have caused £20,000 of damage to a new centre being built for children needing respite care. The £450,000, 25-room building in Gillingham is now months behind schedule because the yobs have been demolishing the brickwork.

The hooligans enter the site in Oxford Road by attaching ropes to trees in Gillingham Park next door and swinging over the 6ft fence. Medway Council building surveyor David Day said: "They are knocking the walls down as quickly as we are building them. The entire rear wall and a side wall were demolished two weeks ago. They climb up on the scaffolding and knock the walls over with their hands. They keep pushing and pushing until the whole lot goes."

The centre, begun in May, was originally scheduled to open by the end of this summer. It is now at least 10 weeks behind schedule with a new opening date of early December.

The centre is designed to replace the service offered to youngsters by Southdowns respite care unit at Doddington, near Sittingbourne. The new centre will offer respite care to these and other children seven days a week.