A TOWN centre statue could be left armless for weeks after council bosses admitted they were left out on a limb by vandals.

The bronze grandmother and child statue on Blackburn's Boulevard is now missing a vital component -- the arm of the little boy stretching for his dropped teddy bear -- after it was hacked off.

Blackburn with Darwen Council has revealed that the artist who created the work, Alan Wilson, is out of the country, which means a date for the repair work, or the cost, cannot be set.

It is thought that the arm was sawn off in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

CCTV footage will be studied to discover if the vandals have been caught on film. Blackburn with Darwen council's regeneration committee said it has received nothing but favourable comments about the bronze statue.

Ashley Whalley, executive board member of the committee, said: "I don't think we have ever had a bad word said about that statue, I am appalled by this.

"Someone has probably just taken the arm to a scrap yard and got a couple of quid for it. It reflects badly not just on the town itself which, up to now, has treated even its most contentious pieces of art as a source of pride, but it also shows contempt for Blackburnians."

Mr Whalley made an appeal for anyone who had information about the vandalism to contact the police. "We will of course seek to repair the statue at the earliest opportunity.

"The artist is abroad at the moment, that is why we have not been able to give a date for the repairs, I'm sure that he will be appalled as I am."

Not everyone was a fan of the piece of art. Garth Edwards of Blackburn' civic society commended Blackburn with Darwen council for trying to enhance the town, but said that the grandmother and child sculpture appeared to have been modelled on former Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher and would be better placed near a children's playground. They thought it was unnecessary because of the woman and child sculpture in nearby Lord Square.

There was uproar when the covers fell from the that bronze statue of a child with its mini-skirted mum -- who wasn't wearing a wedding ring. And even in the swinging sixties, some slammed it as a sign of falling morals.

The statue of Queen Victoria, also on the Boulevard, has been the target of vandals on many occasions. In 1979 an ornamental wall surrounding the sculpture was destroyed, and it was decorated with a Blackburn Rovers hat and scarf for the Full Members Cup in 1987.