It’s where we live

La Pedrera is the leisure zone of Bigastro, a place where people can come and enjoy time in the countryside but it is also a place where we live.

During the daytime, particularly at weekends, people bring their cool boxes and cook al fresco meals on the barbecues, children play and feed the ducks and schools organise galas. In the cool of the evening, ladies take their daily  exercise by walking up to the entrance to the estate. None of this causes us a problem.

At night young folk from the town drive or walk up to the estate to sit and chat in the two parks which again is not a problem. What is a major concern is the litter they leave behind. There are rubbish bins nearby but they choose not to use them, preferring to drop their pizza boxes, empty bottles and cigarette packets on the ground. It is not only an eyesore but is potentially a health hazard.

Annoying as the litter might be, it comes nowhere near the graffiti which has recently appeared. The author obviously came prepared with his or her spray can determined to claim the area as his/her territory.  The indecipherable scrawl doesn’t just spoil the area for those who live here but all the visitors as well.

At the school I taught at in Liverpool we had a policy about graffiti around the school – we cleaned it off as soon as it appeared. We knew that if you left it, the next day there would be more. Clean it off and it makes scrawling it in the first place pointless.

I know there are towns nearby that are a lot worse off for this kind of thing than Bigastro but we don’t want to rival them! For the benefit of the residents and all the decent townsfolk who enjoy using the Pedrera as their place of leisure, we would be grateful if the Ayuntamiento could arrange to have the graffiti removed.

PS I had thought about posting pictures to illustrate what I mean but then that would be giving the perpetrators an even wider audience and  I am not prepared to do that.