ROSE Hill shops and businesses have been hit by a spate of graffiti vandalism, prompting calls for the introduction of CCTV cameras.

Branos, Cafe Spice, Super Saver, Oxford Granites and an empty shop unit are having to be cleaned up after vandals daubed the tag “BWS” on shop shutters in Rose Hill.

The initials have been seen at other locations across Oxford.

Police officers are investigating the latest spate of criminal damage but said it was too early to say whether the crimes were copy cat tags.

Pc Chris Proto said: “Five shops have been affected and the shutters have been vandalised with spray paint.

“It’s difficult to see – it looks like BWS. What I need to know is if anyone saw anything. We’ve never had an issue with graffiti in that area.”

Mohammed Haque, manager at Cafe Spice, said: “We left the shop on Tuesday night at about 11.30pm.

“Everything was as normal and when we came back on Wednesday morning at about 10am it was just shocking – there was spray paint everywhere.

“They’ve used silver spray on the dark shutters and then when we took the shutters up it’s even on the windows.

“It took me and my colleagues two or three hours to clean the windows – not properly, but just to make it a bit better.

“I’m hoping that the council can clean it up for us.

“I’ve been telling the councillors and the authorities that it’s about time got CCTV along here. If you look at Oxford, CCTV is in almost every corner but we are suffering here as a parade of shops.

“If we had cameras he would have thought twice before he did it.

“These sort of things are not good for customers.”

Rose Hill councillor Ed Turner said: “The latest spate of vandalism is absolutely mindless.

“I’ve spoken to one of the traders about the fact that he’s had to spend hours literally scrubbing the windows of his shop.

“It’s really disappointing because people are working hard in tough times to make a living.”

But he said that finding the funds needed to install CCTV wouldn’t be easy to find.

“CCTV is something that will have to be looked at, particularly if there are any other incidents like this, but that being said there’s no budget for this,” Mr Turner added.

Anyone with information about the crime should call Pc Proto on 101 or the independent Crimestoppers hotline anonymously on 0800 555111.