THE police, the Okehampton mayor and one of the town’s supermarkets have condemned mindless vandalism causing damage to property and polluting one of the town’s rivers.

Last week 13 shopping trollies were were found in the West Okement River after being stolen from the town’s Waitrose store and thrown there.

Mike Bestwick, the store’s manager, said that around a dozen trollies were stolen during the last week of the school summer holidays and a further dozen were stolen on Monday, September 4.

Mr Bestwick said: ‘Each of the trollies is worth around £100. The total cost of criminal damage is around £1,500 and we are pursuing this incident with the police. This kind of behaviour puts a bad light on the community and costs us a lot of money.

‘We always seem to have issues with trollies being stolen during the school holidays, I‘m not saying that kids are definitely to blame but it doesn’t paint a good picture. We employ some fantastic young people here at Waitrose, it’s just a shame that a bad picture has been painted by a small group of people.’

The trollies were discovered in the river at the end of last week and were fished out at the weekend by members of the Okement Rivers Improvement Group — a team of volunteers who work to protect Okehampton’s rivers.

‘We have seen this type of unnecessary behaviour before, but never to this scale’, said Christine Marsh of the Okement Rivers Improvement Group.

‘It’s very difficult to get trollies out of the river. They are very heavy and also get caught in the river banks and undergrowth.’

Okehampton Mayor Cllr Jan Goffey said: ‘I am appalled at this stupid, mindless vandalism. Not only is it more than a thousand pounds worth of damage to all these trollies, there is the damage to the river bed and banks, the pollution to the river and the effect on everyone who lives here and enjoys our beautiful surroundings.

‘It must take a fair bit of strength to hurl trollies over the bridge. I hope the culprits realise how the rest of the population feel about them and no, we don’t think about how clever, strong and brave you are — just the opposite!

‘Maybe they should be sent to volunteer with the Environment Agency to learn about our rivers and their fragile ecosystems and their importance in our wellbeing!’

West Devon Police Inspector Mark Sloman said: ‘We understand that this incident has made people in the town angry.

‘We are currently working with different parts of the community to identify the offenders and will use the law to deal with them appropriately.‘