Windows at an education centre dedicated to murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence remain boarded up nine months after they were smashed by vandals.

The Stephen Lawrence Centre, which has helped more than 2,000 young people interested in architecture, was vandalised on February 14 just one week after opening.

Eight windows at the £10m building, in Brookmill Road, Deptford, were smashed in the attack.

But although insurers will pay the £68,000 needed to replace the windows, which feature a design by award-winning artist Chris Ofili, they will not re-insure them unless they are properly protected.

Patron of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust Marco Goldschmied said: “They are just saying the risk is too high.

“It just looks in a sorry state doesn’t it?”

He added: “It’s one of those things - we’ve all got PhDs in hindsight. I guess maybe that material was always a bit of a vulnerable material to choose.”

And the former Royal Institute of British Architects president said more urgent action was needed from the trust.

He said: “If we’re sitting here in a year’s time in the same position I’ll have to think ‘what’s going on?’”

A spokesman for the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust said the necessary improvements to the windows would cost £160,000 at a time when the centre’s resources were committed to its education projects.

Just last week the centre launched a £1m project with an archecture company to hold workshops in deprived areas, sending the most promising students to the design school at Harvard.

He said: “We have a £160,000 shortfall between what the insurers have offered to pay for the glass and the total cost of the security measures that the insurer has insisted the trust must put into place.

“We are working hard to resolve this issue and hoping to raise donations from individuals and companies whilst also using some of the trust’s reserves to meet the cost.”

Four men arrested in connection with criminal damage at the centre were released without charge in May.

Anyone with any information should call Lewisham police on 020 8284 8339, or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.