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RESIDENTS in Bendinat are up in arms over an outbreak of graffiti in the area and the apparent lack of concern being shown by Calvia Council to the plight of the angry local community. Local businessman and resident Malcolm Andrews has written to the local council spelling out the problem and calling for action while Bendinat resident King of Clubs Peter Stringfellow has thrown his wholehearted support behind the campaign and called on more members of the local community to back the lobby. Stringfellow said yesterday that graffiti lines the road from the Portals Nous roundabout to Illetas and even the two Bendinat schools, are also caked in graffiti. Malcolm Andrews says that in his nine years of living and working in the area, he has never seen so much graffiti and that it has reached an “unacceptable level. “Not only is it horrible for residents (Spanish, English, German all of us) but extremely negative and bad for tourism. Holidaymakers want to get away from their urban, inner city dirty areas and come to Majorca for its beauty - but that beauty is now being seriously eroded and damaged by these vandals, (please don't ever suggest that these children are up and coming artists!) they are destroying the pleasant surroundings we love here in Calvia,” he writes in the letter to the council. Peter Stringfellow is equally heartbroken.
He has been coming to Majorca for many years and fell so much in love with the island he decided to move out of London and set up a new home in Bendinat. “We love living here, that's why we're all here, we love Majorca and we can't understand why people want to destroy something so beautiful and nothing appears to be being done to stop them,” he said. “In our area there is a painter who is out every day covering up the graffiti, but it's the whole area now and we're getting no support, it's like the council does not care. “The attitude appears to be ‘don't worry, they'll grow out of it´ but it's vandalism and we're being subjected to visual tyranny. “I've been running clubs all my life and, like in every walk of life, there needs to be discipline if things are going to work properly,” Stringfellow said. “We all live in harmony here with the local Majorcan community and hope that more come out to support the campaign to protect the beauty of where we live,” he added. “There's nothing artistic about this, it's pure vandalism,” he said. “It's the beauty of the island that has attracted many of us away from these kinds of problems in the UK,” Peter Stringfellow added.
Calvia's graffiti problems appear to be well known. A number of people, not only residents in Calvia, have noticed the vandalism along the stretch of road in question and feel equally outraged. Andrews says the opening of the new school has only served to fuel the problem and has told the council so. He has also warned that should the town hall ignore his letter, he is considering launching a media petition.