VANDALS are making harvest time a misery a York farmer said today.

Hooligans have been accused of pushing over stacks of hay bales, costing Claremont House Farm, in Stockton-on-the-Forest, hours and energy to rebuild them.

A member of the farm staff now guards the stacks, made up of 56 bales each, until they can be moved.

Farmer Jen Stead said: "We are fighting against the weather and against poor prices, and now we're fighting against vandals as well.

"It takes a lot of time and hard work to stack these bales back up. We baled the hay at the weekend, and stacks have been pushed over every day since then." She said a gang of about six youngsters, most of whom appear to be aged no more than about ten or eleven, have been seen near the bales, which are on land at Monk Stray which the farm leases from City of York Council.

The bales are stacked to keep most of them dry, and to allow bale carriers to move them into storage.

"Every time they're knocked down we have to build them up again," said Mrs Stead.

"We've now got somebody out there watching them so that we can keep them stacked until we can get them moved.

"It's seems totally senseless that these people are completely wasting our time and energy."

Updated: 11:43 Wednesday, August 21, 2002