Irish signs damage

SIR, — Once again, boundary signage in the Rowallane area has been targeted by sectarian vandalism, this time by throwing white paint over a sign outside Saintfield. 

I would like to commend Council officers for quickly removing the paint and ensuring that the efforts of these sectarian vandals was a waste of time and has had absolutely no impact on the Council’s democratically decided bilingual signage policy. Unfortunately there is something else they are wasting — your money as a ratepayer. 

Providing bilingual signage does not come at any additional cost. These signs would have been produced at the same cost and scale regardless of whether they had Irish and English or just English. However, replacing signs that have been targeted across the district has now cost ratepayers well into the thousands of pounds. 

I would therefore urge anyone who sees or hears of anyone attempting to damage or deface signage to have a word and encourage them not to do so, and if that fails report it to the council and the PSNI. They are only letting themselves and their community down.

Yours etc,

CLLR PATRICK BROWN,

Rowallane.