A concert had to be stopped after a blue bin was burnt out by youths in Kilwinning’s Abbey church grounds.

A winter concert by the Ayr String Band on Sunday night was interrupted just 10 minutes in after the incident on Sunday evening [February 24] just after 9pm.

This follows recent complaints at the town's community council of of burning bins and damage to the war memorial in the Abbey.

Kilwinning Community Council Secretary Nairn McDonald said: "It's really upsetting to have to pause the concert due to wheelie bins being set ablaze in the Abbey Ground. This is not only criminal vandalism but it is incredibly dangerous and deeply disrespectful.

"It's clearly a small minority who are doing this but people in the community must know who they are so they need to be active and report it to police. People clearly know who they are because they'll be going home stinking of the fumes and there's not much the police can do if they don't know who that is.

"Not only is it disgusting and disrespectful to be doing that in a historic church ground but also it's a graveyard, people are buried in there, it's the height of disrespect."

This follows similar acts of vandalism raised with police at the meeting of Kilwinning Community Council last week.

Community Councillor Janey Grier said: "There was at least one blue bin set on fire in the Abbey grounds on Friday (February 15) it was absolutely dreadful. It was just burnt out and the contents of it had been burnt out in the Abbey as well it was really shocking."

Community Councillor Jim Watson said: "I walked through the Abbey grounds today (Thursday, February 21) and someone has been trying to damage the base of the war memorial by throwing stones where the names are on it, it’s really quite disturbing to see that. It’s very disrespectful.

"Again it’s dark, it’s a very difficult area to police but I find it very disturbing that people would be so disrespectful."

Police told members that a 19-year-old male had been identified, charged and reported for vandalism at The Playz, after the Times previously reported CCTV showing youths armed with a Buckfast bottle cracking a window at the community centre at 9.44pm on Saturday, December 29 last year.