THREE more glass panels have been left shattered and are awaiting repair on a £10 million pedestrian bridge.

The panels are the latest to be damaged on Adur Ferry Bridge in Shoreham bringing the number of glass panes damaged to 27 between April 20 and March 4, 2014.

Twenty-two of the panels have been smashed in acts of senseless vandalism while the remaining ones have had faults in the glass or in their fixings to the bridge.

Eye-witnesses said the latest damage was caused by children throwing stones.

The bridge linking Shoreham Beach to the town centre cutting out a 1.5 mile detour was opened to much fanfare in November 2013.

It was unveiled by the Duke of Gloucester with hundreds of schoolchildren performing a conga line across the 214 metre long bridge while 96-year-old Shoreham resident Jack Lucking was spontaneously invited to be among the first to walk across.

Around 900,000 trips are made across the bridge every year but it has also become a regular target of vandals.

In October, 13 broken panes were repaired on the bridge after a wait of up to ten months at a cost to taxpayers of around £18,000.

A report in 2014 claimed some of the panels had cracked because of an impurity from their manufacture but West Sussex County Council have since conceded the majority of panels were damaged by vandals.

To try and combat the issue of vandalism West Sussex County Council has spent £20,000 to install CCTV cameras overlooking the bridge.

Three boys aged between 13 and 15 and a 14-year-old girl were all questioned over graffiti on the bridge last summer but released without charge because of a lack of evidence.

A council spokesman said: “Three panels are damaged. The first, caused by a failure in the fixing, happened at the end of March. The other two, on the Coronation Green end of the bridge, were caused by vandalism last week.

“Our contractor is providing us quotes for replacements.”