“It’s disgusting,” president Peter Kearsey said. 

Brass plaques bearing the names of locals who were members when they died were pried off the granite rock which sits beside the Lions Park playground. The plaques have not been recovered.

“It’s disrespectful because those Lions that the plaques were in honour of, they gave their time and service to the community,” Mr Kearsey said.

“They would have needed a hammer and a chisel to pull them off. You just couldn’t pull them off because they’re set into the granite.”

Lions member Rick Lange said the thin pieces of brass would be worth next to nothing, and felt it was a senseless act.

“There was no monetary value in it. It’s just vandalism. That’s all it is,” he said. “To have their memory ripped off like that for no good reason, it’s wrong.”

Mr Lange said there would be many current residents who personally knew those the memorial honoured.

“A lot of people would know the people that were on those plaques - they’d be related to them as well,” he said. 

The club are now exploring their options for setting new stainless steel plaques, but say the engraving will be costly. They will also need to consider how to keep the memorial secure in future.

“It is disheartening because it means now that we’ve got to take money that should be used for other projects to replace the memorial plaques, and there’s no sense in it,” Mr Kearsey said.

The Lions are still hoping to recover the brass plaques, and encourage anyone who comes across them to contact them. 

This is not the first time equipment in the park has been damaged in the past year. In November last year, prior to the opening of the playground, the park’s gates were removed. They were later recovered in the river by council workers.

Up until that morning, the council had a CCTV camera trained on the playground equipment during construction. The night before the opening, it was moved to the town Christmas tree – which was also vandalised.