Extensive damage caused to coaches parked at Tenby’s North Beach car park by ‘mindless’ vandals is being investigated by police.

Several windows were smashed on the coaches sometime between Sunday and 5.50 am on Monday, January 16, with the vehicles which provide school transport throughout the county on behalf of Pembrokeshire County Council, expected to be off the road for at least a week.

Four of the damaged coaches are owned by Edwards Coaches, with the other belonging to Davies Coaches of Llanelli.

Vandals appear to have broken into the coaches through their main doors before smashing the windows and damaging doors with hammers and the vehicles’ own fire extinguishers.

Jason Edwards of Edwards Coaches said: “I am very disappointed to report that over the weekend a number of our executive coaches, parked up in our Tenby car park, were targeted by a mindless minority of vandals.

“It is very upsetting and demoralising for myself and staff to see all the damage that has been carried out.

“The initial cost of repair to the coaches is estimated in the £1,000's with one coach having every single window smashed. Despite this, a huge thanks goes out to my staff at Pembroke Dock who rallied around and managed to cover all our Pembrokeshire County Council school contracts today,” he continued.

“As a family business we have looked to support, maintain jobs and offer a coach service across Pembrokshire after the Silcox Coaches demise, so I am hopeful that the whole community will rally around and support the local police in order to catch the culprits.

“If this had happened during the summer season it would have had a huge detrimental impact on the tourism industry and that is something that no-one would wish to see.

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for your kind words and support - it is greatly appreciated,” he added.

Manager of the coach firm Tony Thomas said that drivers that had worked for him over 30 years had ‘never seen anything like it’.

“It is a very serious incident indeed. Luckily we had time to find four spare buses and reschedule drivers as there were 200 children needed getting to school on time, and we managed to accomplish this,” he added.

A spokesperson for Pembrokeshire county council said that the authority was ‘grateful’ to Edwards Coaches for not allowing this ‘deplorable act of vandalism’ to disrupt their school transport duties.

Dyfed-Powys Police investigating the incident have asked for anyone with information that could lead to officers finding who was responsible for this crime to call 101 immediately.

Pics. Gareth Davies Photography