Vandals who smashed bottles around a children’s play area left tiny shards of glass strewn in three different places.

A member of the public said the ground in the Uplands playing field site was covered in discarded bottles on Wednesday morning.

In places, bottles had been smashed. Broken glass was found by the climbing wall and near to the play equipment. Just outside the space a clear glass bottle had been smashed against the railing.

The worst debris was at the allotment end of the multi-use games area (muga) where a wine and beer bottle had been broken.

Mike Dando, Stroud Town Council’s green spaces manager, said the dangerous shards that had been scattered around were tiny.

“The glass was in larger fragments on the grass but the bottles had been smashed hard enough that smaller shards and splinters had reached right across the muga, where children will be playing,” he said.

“The site is a popular area for dog walking, and having broken glass on the grass has the potential to cause severe injury to both people and dogs.

“It took a lot of sweeping and walking around trying to pick up individual shards by hand, many were just a few millimetres in length but could cause injury through the skin.”

The bottles were broken between Tuesday August 16 and the morning of Thursday August 18.

Stroud Town Council is appealing for information about the vandalism. Email town clerk [email protected] or call 01453 762817.