VANDALS have damaged a Bishop's Waltham street dubbed one of the prettiest in Hampshire during a midnight attack.

They've wreaked havoc in picturesque St Peter's Street, tipping up large flowerpots, smashing car windows and urinating in the road.

Residents, who take pride in their pristine cobbled street, have been left distraught after the wrecking spree. They were frustrated that police didn't respond straight away.

Paul Goodhew, 57, whose car windows were smashed, said: "If the police had arrived when we called them, they could have caught the yobs. Everyone is very upset. The street is wrecked. There are big concrete pots tipped into the road, seven cars have been smashed up. There is mud everywhere and they urinated in the street too. It's disgusting."

David Ellis-Jones, 63, said teenagers on wrecking sprees was becoming a regular occurrence: "It's happening all the time now. These youngsters are around 14 and 15 years old. They are still young and need to be dealt with quickly or they will just grow into a life of crime."

A spokesman for Hampshire police said officers did confront what appeared to be the same group of youths less than an hour later in Colville Drive as a result of earlier calls.

A spokesman said: "We are following up our inquiries this morning and taking statements from the residents in the street."

Spates of vandalism in Bishop's Waltham have been a growing concern for villagers in recent months and the problem has been worsened because new closed-circuit TV cameras took so long to go live.

Louts targeted the Millennium Jubilee clock over the summer but the culprits got away unchallenged because the cameras weren't working.

St Peter's Street has no surveillance and now residents are calling on local authorities to consider cameras for their road, which has won countless council In Bloom awards.

Councillor Peter Mason, for Bishop's Waltham, said CCTV is not always the answer: "Sometimes putting in cameras just moves the problem elsewhere."

Mr Goodhew said: "I think we are going to have to get up a petition. If the cameras are there it's a deterrent."