I’ve never really fancied the bold lines, bright colour and ornate calligraphy of a tattoo on my body parts, except perhaps when Pompey won the 2008 FA Cup.

But the pettiness of Weymouth and Portland Borough Council’s Planning Department’s threat to remove Elite and Piercing’s shop front painting makes me despairingly angry and confirms all that’s wrong with the town centre and local authority meddling. Weymouth desperately needs brightening up if it is to attract the innovative businesses that will generate the jobs that will hopefully raise the desperately poor level of local wages.

Elite’s shop front painting helps to lift the town centre’s increasingly drab environs and should be welcome and encouraged not discouraged by local authority small mindedness.

The Chamber of Commerce should also speak up and set out a vision of lively prosperity, to perk up a town, long overdue a rethink and a facelift.

Street art adds so much to local culture and shopping footfall. You’ve only got to stroll the streets of Bristol, London, Brighton, Leeds, Newcastle and Aberdeen, amongst others, to appreciate that people enjoy bright art and a leisurely coffee, even if they don’t share their partners’ propensity to shopping ‘til they drop!

Weymouth get a life and good luck to Elite’s determination to ‘entertain’ us all!

Richard Denton-White
Fortuneswell Portland