Sir.-I must endorse Trevor Heath's comments on graffiti (Thursday Gazette, November 16).

The amount of graffiti around the town has reached epic proportions and yet the council feels it is right to reduce the graffiti-cleaning units from two to one.

It is obvious that you will only stop this horrible habit if the mess is cleaned off immediately.

But graffiti in the underpass in Cliddesden Road has remained in place for months. I am told that the cleaning of this underpass is the responsibility of Hampshire County Council as it has an (ineffective) anti-graffiti surface.

I don't care who should be doing it; I do care that no one does it.

I take issue with those who claim the perpetrators are artists. Some years ago art students from Queen Mary's College designed and painted murals on this underpass, and it was hoped that young people would respect the work of their peers.

What genuine artist would spray paint over another's work in such a thoughtless, uncaring manner?

These people are not artists - they are vandals.

-Julia Townsend-Rose,
Cliddesden Road Residents Association co-ordinator,
Basingstoke.