Vandals have caused £20,000 of damage to a multi-million-pound sports ground which has been open for only a week.

Damage has been occurring daily at the Myra Shay ground, off Barkerend Road, Bradford.

A total of £1.5 million has so far been spent over the last 12 months to transform the previously semi-derelict site. A further £1 million is due to be spent on developing changing facilities, bringing the total to £2.5 million.

The flagship Regen 2000 scheme has three full-size football pitches, a cricket square and a junior football pitch, as well as a children's play area and 4,000 newly-planted trees.

But louts on mini-motorbikes have churned up the pitches, ripped metres of fencing down, pulled up 400 saplings and yesterday poured concrete down the children's slide. The catalogue of damage has sickened people involved in the sports ground's development.

Mick Priestley, Bradford Council's technical manager for parks and landscapes, said: "This was supposed to be the jewel in the crown of the Regen 2000 programme.

"We want to say to these louts: "Don't do it. You are risking losing what's the best recreation ground in Bradford and if you carry on, the chances are the money for repairs will run out and the site will be back to rack and ruin'.""

Mr Priestley said they had minimal problems with vandalism while the sports ground was being built but, once the grass seeds took hold, a group of four or five youths had run riot.

Mr Priestley said: "We actually opened a month early because of the vandalism.

"They were regularly breaking through the barriers and our hand was forced. We have anti-bike gates and the park rangers and police have got involved. But no one has been caught.

"It's unbelievable the damage they have caused."

The cricket square, which cost £60,000 to install, is expected to cost the most to repair as specialist materials may have to be replaced.

An emergency meeting is being held on Monday to find ways of curbing the continuing vandalism which is threatening the ground.

And a management committee consisting of members of the community is due to be set up to run the site.

It was due to cost a total of £2.5 million to develop the site with work on a building housing changing rooms and a community room due to start next week.

Councillor Ghazanfer Khaliq (Lab, Bradford Moor), a former Lord Mayor of Bradford, has been closely involved with the project from the start and is also on the board of Regen 2000.

He said: "This was supposed to be a key project of Regen 2000 and a long-standing facility for the community to take pride in.

"We were hoping it would remain as a legacy. I am sickened at what has happened. It is soul-destroying."

He appealed to members of the community to keep an eye out for the culprits.

"I am asking if anyone sees this happening they should ring the park rangers or police straight away. We want to catch these people committing these crimes."