Nadur council ridiculed online after warning against child chalk drawings

Nadur local council has faced a wave of ridicule after appearing to clamp down on chalk drawings made by children in a play area.

Writing on Facebook last week, the council said “unfortunately, it has come to our attention that chalk drawings have been made, on a regular basis, on the safety mats at Hali Playing Field”.

In a post showing CCTV images of a child chalking a flower on a green tarmac mat next to a seesaw, the council stressed that drawing on public equipment was “strictly not allowed”.

It asked visitors to the area to “respect the rules and help us maintain the park in a safe and clean condition for everyone.”

But not everyone appeared to agree with the council’s stance.

Within days, the post had racked up hundreds of comments from Facebook users ridiculing the council and defending the children's actions.

Multiple users called the drawing “lovely” and “beautiful”, while others simply asked: “seriously?”

Toni Ann Costanzo Muscat called the post “a bit harsh” and said the chalk would “wash off easily” - a comment echoed by others responding to the council.

Karen Fiorini sarcastically suggested that “childhood is cancelled in Nadur”, while Stefan Buhagiar said: “Anyone who wants to know what's wrong with this country, read this post”.

Speaking to Times of Malta, Nadur mayor Edward Said stressed the council was not against children drawing in the area, but said it was up to parents to remove any drawings when they left.

He added that the council was exploring installing drawing boards for children to use instead.

'We should encourage children to be creative'

One Facebook user, Ella Mckenna, asked if “we really want to go down this road and stop any form of creativity outdoors,” adding: "We should encourage our children to relax get creative and arty”.

Meanwhile, Sean Borg sardonically compared the council to the "evil queen in the Snow White movie, the Grinch at Christmas, [and] the ‘close button' on pop-up ads” as Chris Coleiro wryly suggested the council had posted an April fool’s joke “a few days late”.

Taking a more serious tone, other Facebook users expressed their support for the children’s drawing activities and called on the council to invest in an area for children to practise their art skills.

Others asked the council to concentrate its efforts on other matters, with Thomas Lambert asking it to “focus on fixing the roads” and Stefan Schembri suggesting it put up a post asking construction contractors to clean up streets they “ruin with their projects”.

An image showing the play area before the drawings. Photo: Nadur Local Council/Facebook.

The mat with the drawings. Photo: Nadur Local Council/Facebook.

Responding to some of the comments, the council insisted it had been removing the drawings “for months now… and no it's not easy to remove”, while reiterating its calls to “keep the public place clean”.

It stressed the mats were “not private property” and called on parents to “be responsible to show [children] how to clean them up afterwards”.

'We have been receiving complaints for months'

The mayor, meanwhile, told Times of Malta the council had been receiving complaints about the drawings from residents and other play area users "for months now”, adding: "I can't send out the message that drawing on equipment is okay".

"Our issue is not the kids drawing with chalk, our issue is them leaving without clearing it up – at least leave the play area in the same way you find it," he said, urging parents to take responsibility for any drawings in the play area. 

Hitting back at comments that the chalk would be naturally cleared by rainwater, Said pointed out that Malta's climate meant rainfall was less frequent and stressed that removing the chalk therefore required council resources.

"We don't consider this vandalism, we're just asking for people to clean up after themselves," he said, adding the council would discuss drawing boards for the area at its next meeting.