A NUMBER of planters were vandalised in Kesh in the early hours of last Sunday morning, July 18, with plants pulled out and strewn across the pavement in the main street of the village.

UUP Councillor for Erne North, John McClaughry, who lives in the Kesh area, condemned the vandalism.

He said: "Our village orderly works hard to keep the town looking exceptionally well. For somebody in the early hours of the morning to pull plants out of a planter and throw them around the street, I find it difficult to understand the amusement behind it.

"Alan [the village orderly] was there first thing on Sunday morning, and he goes above and beyond his duties. He had picked them all up and put them back in again.

"At a time when we're facing a water crisis because we've got a bit of sunshine, for those plants to survive they'll need extra watering now, because their whole root structure and everything has been disturbed, just because some thoughtless individuals found it somewhat amusing to do that sort of behaviour."

Talking about antisocial behaviour in general, Councillor McClaughry, who was the outgoing chair of the Policing and Community Safety Partnership (PCSP), said: "Due to Covid, there seems to be certain areas where young people were at a loss because there was nothing structured going on for them.

"There seemed to be people at a loss, but slowly now things are coming back to some sort of normality and reports [of antisocial behaviour] are going down."

He explained that over the lockdown, crime as a general rule was down, but antisocial behaviour was slightly up.

"Again, that was kind of to be expected, because young people were at a loss. Young people have suffered greatly; they've lost out on a whole 18 months of social interaction that they would normally have had.

"It's difficult for young people. There's littering and then there's accidents and things, but [the vandalism of the planters] that's deliberate mischief.

"I can't understand the amusement in it, pulling all those plants out and throwing them around the place," he told this newspaper.