A SPECIAL anti-climb paint designed to stop youngsters hurting themselves clambering on a block of council owned garages on a housing estate in Bromsgrove has proved useless -- it is claimed.

It was applied to garages at Breakback Road, in Rock Hill, after the Advertiser/Messenger highlighted the dangers of children playing on the asbestos roofs and making nuisances of themselves.

But Edwina Evans who represents tenants living at Rock Hill and Millfields this week said the exercise had been a failure.

"It's been a total waste of money.

"When you touch it, it is bone dry and is no deterrent to stop children climbing on the roofs," she said.

She said a suggestion that metal posts and barbed wire was a more realistic method of stopping offenders had been rejected by the council.

She added that recently police had been called when youngsters had been spotted on the roofs hurling objects on to the nearby Worcester Road.

Edwina plans to raise the matter with council officials at a meeting tomorrow (Thursday).

The council's head of housing services, Andy Coel, said he will ask the contractors who applied the paint to examine it to see if it has dried out and re-apply it if necessary.

He added he is looking at ways of using fencing to stop access to roofs and plans to see how other local authorities tackle similar problems.