Eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning in Vale Park, and I have never seen so many dogs sitting so nearly still. Cain's bench is in place at the top of the hill, the town raised 161% of the target to put it there, and the money left over has gone to the dogs still waiting for their homes.

New Brighton came 108th of 118 in the Which? seaside survey — two stars for the beach, one for things to do. We could argue with it. Instead we read it, honestly and all the way through: where the scorecard is fair, what forty-seven visitors never saw, and what it would take to stop being the end of the line.

It hurts to see public art in New Brighton vandalised like this.

New Brighton Creative Futures exists to support artists and creative expression in the public realm. We recognise freedom of expression as a protected right in the UK (Human Rights Act 1998, Article 10). But that right is not a licence to damage other people’s work or property.

Spraying over existing murals, defacing buildings, and repeatedly tagging areas of the promenade and storm channel is not “street art” in any meaningful sense — it is vandalism. Graffiti without the owner’s consent is widely treated as criminal damage.