IT is nearly five years since young Vicki Cartman tragically lost her life in a car accident.

However, family and friends were determined she should not be forgotten, and a millennium green at Whinny Gill, Skipton, was named after her.

Everything was going well - grants had been secured for the work, play equipment installed, and a picnic and wildlife area created. Plans were in hand for an official opening ceremony in the summer.

It should have been a time of celebration.

But, the new memorial garden has been vandalised, with trees and play equipment painted blue, and safety matting ripped from the ground.

Not surprisingly, Vicki's mother Carol Denny is devastated.

It is a sad fact of life that some people always ruin things for others.

The vandalism means another project to provide an all-weather sports pitch on the estate could be in jeopardy.

After all who is going to invest huge sums of money if the pitch is likely to be damaged before its first game.

The only positive note to emerge is that some children on the estate, so incensed by the vandalism, took it upon themselves to try to clean up the green.

Everyone should follow their example.