CAMPAIGNING ahead of the Winsford Neighbourhood Plan referendum reached new levels this week – with ‘Yes’ banners town torn down by unknown assailants.

The ‘No’ campaign also stepped up across Winsford, with ‘No’ leaflets distributed to homes throughout town.

The ‘Yes’ lobby have condemned the banner vandalism, which police said they were investigating but had no suspects for.

Of the missing banners – removed in High Street, Wharton Park Road and near the Winsford Industrial Estate – Yes Winsford spokesman, John Malam, said: “This is theft, and has been reported to the police.

“Replacement banners have now been put back up at these locations.”

He added: “Last week a hoax phone call was made to the manager of Winsford Cross Shopping Centre, alleging that the ‘Yes Winsford’ banners displayed at the shopping centre were breaching copyright.

“The Yes Winsford design, logo and colours have been created by the Yes Winsford campaign and all copyright and intellectual property belongs to us.

“The shopping centre fell for a malicious phone call, but after talking to Yes Winsford has agreed to put the banners back up.”

Elsewhere, the ‘yes’ campaign were angered by ‘No’ leaflets posted through letterboxes across Winsford. They believed them to be in contravention of electoral rules for not containing information on who had printed them.

But the ‘No’ campaign refute the claim, arguing that their leaflet was affixed with a sticker linking the leaflets to online campaign groups organising the ‘No’ lobby. Those groups are: Save Winsford Areas, Save Rilshaw and Save the Flashes.

Meanwhile, Mr Malam dismissed claims contained in the ‘No’ leaflet that the Yes Winsford campaign was being run by a small number of residents in Darnhall.

“The Nos are using this leaflet in an attempt to smear the residents of Winsford in their false allegation that the Yes Winsford campaign is purely Darnhall-led,” said the Wharton resident.

“It isn’t, it’s across all of Winsford, with activists and supporters right across town. Look at the number of business supporters we have on our website, look at the locations where banner are displayed — all with permission of the property owners.”

A spokesman for Neighbourhood Policing Team said: “We have the locations of all the banners which are £30 a piece and will take positive action if we have any evidence of who have committed the theft or damage of them.”