A new housing estate has been vandalised, to the anger and despair of residents.

Youths have daubed walls and signs with graffiti and left syringes and broken glass in the playground on Worthing's newest estate.

Householders are outraged by the state of the Barley Fields Estate in West Durrington, Worthing.

In the playground, the children's castle is covered in graffiti and picnic tables are daubed with rude slogans. Residents have complained of finding syringes and used condoms in the grass.

Dawn Powell, of Moore Close, said she wouldn't let her two children play there.

She said: "There is a kid's park, but you can't take the kids down there. It's not safe."

Wooden fences, road signs, bollards and houses have all been targeted by the vandals, who are believed by many to live on the estate.

Mrs Powell said: "The graffiti here is appalling. It's a nice estate, but it is being ruined."

Sharon Newman, of Varey Road, said she was trying to set up a tenants' association to tackle the problem.

She said: "Part of the problem is that there's a mixture of private housing and housing association property. Nobody looks after the estate as a whole.

"The council say if it's not on their bit, it's not their problem. The housing association says the same. We need to tackle this together.

"When my friends come to visit me, they think it's a slum."

Councillor Chris Sargent, who represents the Durrington ward, acknowledged that the graffiti was bad.

He said: "The trouble is this mixture of private and council property. Unless all the agencies do their bit, the graffiti doesn't get removed. I think more community policing is needed."

A spokeswoman for the housing association Servite, responsible for many homes in Moore Close, said: "We remove graffiti on our properties as soon as we are made aware of it. We can only be responsible for our own stock, and that's what we are trying to sort out.

"We are all for joint working, so if some joint effort to tackle the problem could be brought about, we would be in favour."