Repairs to Yarmouth's vandalised sand sculptures will start on Wednesday. The damage was done when youths broke into the compound on Central Beach and knocked heads off three of the sculptures in the £1m display.

Repairs to Yarmouth's vandalised sand sculptures will start tomorrow.

As we reported previously, youths broke into the comp-ound on Central Beach and knocked heads off three of the sculptures in the £1m display.

Festival director Thomas van Dungen had considered leaving the statues damaged as a lasting reminder of what the vandals had done when they struck on Sunday last week. But yesterday he said he had changed his mind.

Instead, two sculptors will travel today from Holland and Israel to do repairs, and more are ready to be summoned if need be.

Mr van Dungen said: “People are confused over the scale of the damage at the moment. They're under the impression it's worse than it is. We want to take away that confusion, and the only real way we can do that is to repair them completely.

“The sculptors will be on the site for a week, which will give visitors another opportunity to watch these artists at work.”

He said the festival, which runs until September 10, was still drawing about 10,000 visitors a week.