Vandals hit Masterton athletics track

The all-weather athletics track at the Colin Pugh Sports Bowl neighbouring Queen Elizabeth Park in Masterton. PHOTO/FILE

Four youths were seen on CCTV footage vandalising the all-weather athletics track in Masterton, leading up to one of the track's biggest events of the year this weekend.

The tag Killer Beez Masterton was found in several locations around the facility last week and police said while the tag itself is gang-related, "there have been no reports of gang-related behaviours recently linked to the group".

"From my understanding, this incident was just a group of youths using that tag and it's something we'll just have to keep an eye on," Police Senior Sergeant Mike Sutton said.

Masterton District councillor and athletics coach Mark Harris said it was a "shame" the youths had taken it upon themselves to "do the artwork" just before the Wellington Centre Track and Field Championships which is held at the track this Saturday.

"The tagging was reported to me by someone else on Wednesday night at about 6pm last week," he said.

"So I went to the track the next morning because I had training and I saw what they had written, so then I spent the next few hours going through the video footage and finally tracked down that there were four people who came in and did it.

"Well one in particular has done the work -- the 'artwork', and the other three have just been hangers on."

Mr Harris said he didn't know the extent of the damage financially but has put in a service request to the council for it to be tidied up before this weekend's event, which 175 people are registered for.

"Ultimately it's MDC property so I've just put a request through to them."