A Ramsgate resident has spoken out against the vandalism that has seen another of the town's seafront shelters damaged.

The shelter, one of 14 which had recently been restored by The Ramsgate Society at a total cost of more than £500,000, had panes of glass shattered and knocked out.

It follows similar incidents, reported throughout the last two years, where vandals damaged shelters in the same area causing nearly £10,000 of damage.

The Ramsgate Society treasurer Mark Robson said: “With this new repair, we have spent more than £7,000 on glass repairs alone over the last two years.

“There were 10 panes of glass damaged in this attack, which is costing us another £400.”

The group has raised a lot of money for these shelters and members have been looking at other options, such as plastic windows and metal grills.

However all of these options come with issues.

Mr Robson explained that if you took the glass out then they would no longer be shelters, the frames of the shelters are too wide for the plastic and the metal grill would cost a lot of money.

The society has considered putting graffiti paint on the shelters at another cost of £700 to counter other issues with vandalism on the shelters.

The Rev John Chater, town centre priest for St George’s Church, said vandalism must be tackled.

He said: “The shelters stand out new, shiny and perfect in a dull environment which I think makes them particularly vulnerable.

"You need to jump on the vandalism very quickly because if something has been vandalised it attracts others to do the same thing.

“You have to have CCTV but the problem is it’s expensive. In the long run it must work out cheaper. We need to see how we can tackle this problem.”

The Edwardian shelter is on Victoria Parade on the east side of The Granville Theatre and CCTV has been put up in the area.

Ramsgate Heritage Regeneration Trust chairman Jocelyn McCarthy said: “We have had quite a problem with that recently and CCTV has been put up to counter the issue.

“We hope the CCTV will catch them and make it stop. The police have been very good in carefully monitoring the issues.”

Police were notified of the damage and are reviewing the issues.

Spokesman Scarlet Jones said: “Police received a report of criminal damage caused to a shelter in Victoria Parade, Ramsgate, at around 2am on November 17.

“A number of windows were reported damaged and inquiries are ongoing.”