Ilkley'S late-night revellers are leaving a trail of destruction at weekends, say businesses forced to pick up the bill.

Drinkers on their way home from town centre pubs are being blamed for breaking windows and etching graffiti with glass-cutting tools on town centre shop windows.

And in the latest attacks, tomato ketchup was daubed across the front windows of a number of businesses on Church Street, leaving shop owners to clear up the mess on Monday morning.

Hairdresser Barbara Gentry, who has run Manor Hair Fashions, Church Street, for nearly 40 years, said: "We've had two or three windows broken since Christmas. This is an old part of Ilkley, our properties are supposed to be protected and we're supposed to look after them."

She said when she first came to the shop, there were no problems, but incidents of vandalism have become more frequent in recent years. She blames people on their way home from a Friday or Saturday night out.

She was disgusted to find vandals had squirted tomato ketchup along the shop window at the weekend, but the shop avoided serious damage.

A nearby hairdressing salon was not so lucky, and as well as being struck by the ketchup vandals, also had a window broken over the weekend.

Carol Fairest, of Stewart Gordon Salon, believes the problem has become worse in recent years.

"We've spoken to the police but there's not a lot they can do. We did have some problems a couple of years ago, and the police did more patrols, and it seemed to ease off."

Now the shopkeepers are hoping other people out and about on the streets late at night will keep an eye out for the wreckers - or the vandals will see the error of their ways.

Diana Platt, of Church Street haberdashery Duttons for Buttons, says the business has twice had to replace its front window - at a cost of more than £700 each time - because of late-night vandalism. The shop window was smashed in one incident, and more recently, vandals had gone to the lengths of using a glass-cutting instrument to scratch stars and other shapes in the glass, ruining the window.

Mrs Platt said glass panes in the door of another Church Street shop had also been damaged in the same way.

She said: "It's not as if it's anything personal, it's just pure vandalism. It's as if they think 'let's go out and have some fun today'."

Although most of the shops affected have been able to cover the cost of the damage with their insurance, they say insurance premiums are being forced up by increasing vandalism in the area.

Mrs Platt said it could be difficult to gain planning permission to fit shutters to shop windows in the conservation area.

Sgt Esther Hobbs of Ilkley Police said a number of measures could be used to combat the problem, but she is urging businesses to report all incidents of vandalism, to help police investigate.

The area's Problem Orientated Policing (POP) Team office, PC Stuart Hudson, is looking into Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, which can be brought into effect on local youths who

vandalise property.

For older offenders, Sgt Hobbs said the town's Pub Watch scheme could impose a pub ban on anyone caught vandalising shops after leaving a town centre pub. She said this scheme - which is regulated by the pubs themselves - could ban any individual from all pubs in Ilkley and Addingham.

Police are also in discussions with councillors over the extension of CCTV monitoring in Ilkley's shopping streets.