Allotment holders have been left devastated after plans for their annual show were left in tatters by vandals.

Moorside Allotments in Moorside Road, Eccleshill, has suffered four break-ins in little more than a week as the growers gear up for their annual show at the beginning of next month.

Allotment manager John Parish said vegetables have been chopped into pieces, flowers have been beheaded and objects, including a Zimmer-frame, had gone missing.

He said members of the Eccleshill Horticultural Society, based at the allotments, had been preparing for the show on Saturday, September 4, for the past 12 months.

He said: “We are struggling to find stuff of the normal standard that we produce to show.

“It’s just out-and-out vandalism but it just upsets us as we put so much into the community.

“It’s just such a shame that the lads have out so much effort into it.

“On Sunday night weedkiller was thrown on two patches, which has just decimated some swedes and marrows.”

Mr Parish said nine huts and greenhouses had been broken into overall.

He said: “What they have done is just got knives or whatever they can get hold of and they have just destroyed them, chopped things in half, cut them or pulled them out of the ground.

“In my plot they have cut all the cucumbers and gherkins, chopped them in half, and pulled all the sweetcorn and carrots up.

“We all do a huge onion show and we get a get a couple of seeds each and grow these mammoth onions just for show and they have cut every one at the allotments. They have even broken into a disabled plot and pinched a Zimmer-frame.

“The lad below me is 84 and they have cut every head of every flower that he grows – just cut them off with scissors.

“He can’t afford to get angry, he’s too old to get angry, but they are just upset because they have put so much work into it.”

Mr Parish said the show will go on though, despite the damage to the produce.

He said: “They have pinched tools and all sorts, but it is the damage to the produce mainly which has left this show not in jeopardy, we will get through, but it’s obviously not going to be as huge as it usually is.”

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said they had been informed of reports of damage and theft from the allotment including a break-in overnight between August 11 and 12.

Anyone who has information should call Eccleshill Neighbourhood Policing Team on (01274) 376168.