Recently refurbished car park daubed with offensive graffiti

Twm Owen, Local Democracy Reporter

A community volunteer spent his bank holiday weekend repainting a car park after vandals daubed offensive words and messages on its walls. 

Black paint was used to paint messages appearing to taunt individuals and a rival group on the walls of the Riverside Car Park in the centre of Pontypool. 

The damage on the sixth floor of the car park was discovered on Friday, 28 August and occurred just months after volunteers had completed a major refurbishment of the Torfaen Borough Council owned property. 

Dyl Delaney, chairman of the Pontypool Community Taskforce which led the community painting days at the car park at the end of March, returned to the facility this weekend with paint brush in hand to restore the white walls and cover up the offensive messaging. 

“I think everybody had other things planned this weekend but you can’t have words like that put up and left to offend others,” said Mr Delaney who spent Sunday and the August Bank Holiday Monday painting the car park on his own. 

“I didn’t want the community to be looking at that following the bank holiday. It’s not nice to have that kind of language, especially on the floor where there is disabled parking. 

“The upsetting thing is the language that was used,” said Mr Delaney of the messages which appeared to be aimed at individuals and referenced sexuality. 

It is also understood paint brushes were recovered from the car park. 

The Pontypool Community Taskforce held three volunteer days in March when supporters aimed to bring what was described as a “tired, neglected space” back to life by clearing drains and undertaking a deep clean before repainting line markings and the walls. 

---

Get more trusted Welsh news

Choose Nation.Cymru as a preferred source in Google News to see more of our journalism.