Canterbury City Council has condemned the vandalism of a newly completed mural at East Cliff in Herne Bay, saying the clean-up cost residents “a few hundred pounds” that could have gone towards local services.
A new mural at East Cliff was tagged with graffiti over a weekend — money wasted, public workers dispatched, and all for nothing. Canterbury City Council sent its graffiti team alongside Canenco’s cleaners to sort the mess out. They managed it, the council said, helped by an anti-graffiti protective coating that had been applied to the mural when it was first completed.
A few hundred pounds. That’s what it cost Herne Bay taxpayers to undo what somebody did over the weekend. The council said it would rather have spent that money on services for residents, which is hard to argue with.
Cllr Connie Nolan, Cabinet member for community safety at Canterbury City Council, didn’t mince words. “Council staff were as disgusted as residents when they saw the tagging on the newly-completed mural,” she said. She thanked the graffiti team and Canenco for acting quickly — but made clear they shouldn’t have needed to.
On the tagging itself, Cllr Nolan was characteristically direct. “Tagging is disrespectful and unsightly — it’s not art, it’s the human equivalent of an animal marking its territory, and it’s unacceptable,” she said. The council described the damage as “mindless and utterly pointless” and said it was confident “all right-minded people” would join in condemning it.
The council’s graffiti team and Canenco’s cleaners did what the council called “a fantastic job” in removing the tagging. But the episode was an unwelcome drain on public funds all the same. Canterbury City Council published its statement on 21 September 2026 through its official Newsroom platform.
Mural tagging at East Cliff cost Herne Bay taxpayers hundreds of pounds Quiz
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