THE INK had barely dried on the agreement for the sale of Regent Circus before the building was tagged in a spate of graffiti over the weekend.

On Sunday morning residents of Cross Street woke to find a number of properties in the area having been tagged with yellow paint overnight.

The vandals had gone along the street and hit four houses during Bank Holiday weekend, before continuing around the corner and spray-painting the side of the new £40m complex.

The Morrisons supermarket is the closest part of the complex to completion with the exterior walls now in place.

Work on the site slowed during the Bank Holiday weekend, and it was hit with the yellow paint just days after UK Commercial Property Trust put pen to paper to make the acquisition of the central retail area.

Residents in the street were surprised at the bold act of vandalism, something which is usually quite rare in the area. Some people were away during the weekend and had to be informed by social media.

Tarquin Stehle, 55, of Cross Street, said the graffiti had cropped up overnight on Saturday.

“It has been done all the way along this road and down the back of the new Morrisons building,” he said. “They have just written ‘sin’, so I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.”

“They have done it in yellow paint in about three or four different places. They must have come along our side of the street before going around the corner and doing the same thing at Morrisons. You can’t miss it really, it’s quite prominent.

“I first noticed it on Sunday, so they must have turned up and done it on Saturday night. This is very unusual for this area because it is usually pretty quiet around here.

“I don’t know what happens next but the council are usually pretty good at coming around and cleaning it off when this sort of thing happens.

“I saw someone coming round the other day taking photos, but I don’t know how long it will be left there for.”

Thomas Blake, of Cross Street, saw the graffiti first thing and informed his neighbours straight away.

“When it happened to us the council came round and removed it, but it took them a while to come out if I remember rightly,” he said.

“It’s also worth reporting it to the police, as they can log it as a crime and it helps them keep track of individual taggers. Three or four along that side of the street got done.”

Anyone with any information about the incident should contact Wiltshire Police on non-emergency number 101 and speak to the neighbourhood policing team to investigate.