THIS is the scene of devastation that greeted the leaseholders of York's beleaguered Bonding Warehouse who now face a £10,000 clean-up bill after evicting squatters from the building.

Leaseholder Lionel Davis claimed it would cost between £5,000 and £10,000 to clean up graffiti-daubed walls, windows and gates, smashed windows and floors strewn with cans, bottles and rubbish mingled with urine and excrement.

It is the destruction left after squatters moved in to the Grade II landmark building on Skeldergate in York at the end of last week.

At York County Court yesterday, Mr Davis and his partner, Keith Carby, were granted an eviction order to kick out any remaining squatters from the former pub.

Mr Davis said the clean-up cost was on top of the £1,500 it had cost in legal fees to go to court.

Built in 1875, the former bar and restaurant is owned by City of York Council and has been at the centre of protracted wrangling between the council and the leaseholders over repairs after the floods of 2000. About a dozen members of the York Peace Collective set up home there a week ago, holding an all-night rave on Saturday night, but by Monday many had left, complaining gatecrashers had smashed it up.

They originally moved in to highlight the plight of the four-storey building, which had been standing empty since the floods.

The squatters did not attend the court hearing, but are reported to have turned up at court on Tuesday and Wednesday instead.

Mr Davis said: "I'm still assessing the damage, but I estimate between £5,000 and £10,000 worth of damage has been done.

"I'll now be getting it boarded up to make sure nobody else can get in to it.

"The squatters have this wonderful deluded dream it's going to change something, but we are the ones picking up the tab all the time."

John Procter, the leaseholders'

building manager, said the pub had been left in an "appalling" condition and described the behaviour of the occupiers as "disgraceful".

He said: "The place is an appalling state. There's spray paint absolutely everywhere on the inside of the building as well as the fly-infested remnants of a big rave.

"Boxes and boxes of stuff have been thrown around and windows have been smashed. Things have been thrown in the river too and there is urine and excrement inside."

Peace Collective member Paul Stephenson said: "Most of the damage was done when we got invaded and we tried to stop it happening, but when you have people throwing huge poles about it's quite difficult to contain."

Updated: 10:57 Friday, August 20, 2004