The vandalised mini-digger
A ‘senseless’ attack on a national park’s digger will cost thousands of pounds and delay repairs to one of its most popular paths.
All the windows on a Snowdonia National Park Authority excavator were smashed by stones while it was on Snowdon.
The authority said it was saddened and disappointed by the vandalism. The attack on the machine, which was on the Llanberis Path, happened between 3pm and 6pm on Saturday, 19 March.
Mair Huws, the authority’s head of the warden’s service, said: “Thousands of pounds worth of unnecessary damage has been caused to a machine that we are completely dependent on to do our work.
“Due to a totally uncalled-for and senseless act we will lose a week of restoration work on the Snowdon paths and at the same time we are preparing for a busy Easter and summer.
Stones were used to smash the digger's windows
“Due to the remote location of the mini-digger, it’s going to be an enormous struggle to bring it back down the mountain to get it fixed, let alone getting a replacement machine into position to allow us to carry on with the work in the meantime.
“It was a sunny day on Saturday and Snowdon’s paths were fairly busy. If anyone has any information about the incident, we are appealing to them to contact North Wales Police on 101 quoting reference number RC16040417.”
Lancs Lad
22 March 2016Mindless, what sort of numbskull would bother to visit such a great place and then do this.
Wouldn't have thought you would need window guards and CCTV on Snowdon but this proves opposite.
If caught they should be made to work on the paths for 12 months with only hand tools..
Mike Gibson
22 March 2016Those rocks probably harbour (direct from skin 100% or from that on gloves <5%) the dna from the culprits, so keep these in sealed containers and have them analysed as soon as possible (ASAP). You never know when they may strike again.
Alex
22 March 2016Absolutely despicable behaviour. It saddens me that people can behave so selfishly. I really hope that the culprits are caught.
I'm sure the irony of damaging the digger, which was maintaining the path used to commit this moronic act, will be lost on the cretins.
Stigofthenest
23 March 2016I find it hard to believe that no one saw something.. even if its a case of narrowing down the timeframe.. If you saw the diggers windows were intact at say 4pm or were smashed at say 5pm let someone know..