A ‘WELL-behaved’ vandal with ‘no previous convictions’ has sent money to the owners of a parade of shops they defaced.

Waldo Skipsey has held up their hands to the blue graffiti scrawled across the historic Elms Parade last month in protest to the multi-million pound redevelopment of Botley’s shopping centre.

The messages, which have since been removed, read: ‘Mace hands off Botley’ and ‘Barbrer [sic] screwed Botley.’

In a letter to the Oxford Mail the graffiti artist said it was the ‘amateurish and callous eviction’ of the centre’s much loved shopkeepers and restaurateurs that drove them to pick up an aerosol.

They wrote: “And at the end of it all, we will have an agglomeration of gargantuan constructions, that are enormously bigger, considerably more hideous and with less character than the 60s buildings that are to be demolished to make way for them.”

Unrest grew in the village after developers Mace announced in April it was going to demolish the current West Way Shopping Centre in one go.

Skipsey also admitted to be behind another graffiti message that appeared a few days later, this time in red, which read: ‘Sorry Howse, love ya will pay’.

As the two graffitied buildings are owned by the Howse family, the responsibility of removing the writing fell to them.

Chris Church, founder of the Association for Botley Communities, also received a letter from Skipsey with money to give to the Howse family.

He said: “This is obviously a well-behaved vandal, however we do not condone this sort of behaviour.

“You should not resort to vandalism to express your opinion, there are more constructive ways of doing this.”

As a result of the changes to the phasing schedule Mace will now be holding a public consultation on Tuesday, June 13 from 2pm to 8pm at St Peter and St Paul church hall.

Mace declined to comment.