AN ARSON attack at a charity’s youth centre has left their basketball courts out of order and unusable for the foreseeable future.

The Canvey Yellow Door youth hub is a vital resource on the island running youth clubs and helping youngsters in need of support, but bosses have been left devastated at a second arson in as many months.

On Thursday night, a wheelie bin was pulled onto the basketball courts and set fire to while a similar incident took place on December 27.

Echo: CCTV image of the blazeCCTV image of the blaze (Image: Canvey Yellow Door)

Manager Alex Hawkins said: “Young people need to know how serious this is, we will be doing an outreach to put the word out that this is dangerous and wrong, but they are the minority.

“The first incident almost burnt our building down and now they have ruined the perfectly fine basketball court, they were misguided.

“It is ridiculous and wrong because the majority of young people involved are either having fun or volunteering with us.

“We have an outreach team, and we go to lots of places to work with young people, and most of them try and it is unfair to them that this happened.”

Ms Hawkins added that the group runs a variety of events to try and help younger people across the island - from youth clubs on Fridays to sports clubs and events.

She said: “We work with more than 200 young people, and this was just four that decided to do this, they need to know how serious this is.”

An Essex County Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson said: “Firefighters were called to a bin on fire basketball court near Labworth Road, Canvey at 9.26pm on Thursday.

“Firefighters worked to extinguish the fire and believe it was caused deliberately. If you know how this fire started, you can report it to FireStopper’s, 100 per cent anonymously.

“FireStopper’s is a completely independent charity, who are 100 per cent anonymous, 100 per cent of the time.

“Find out more at essex-fire.gov.uk/firestoppers.”