THE iconic lions at the entrance to Grimsby's Weelsby Woods have been restored to their former glory after being daubed with graffiti by "mindless" vandals.
Shocked park users discovered the statues had been sprayed red and blue on Monday and North East Lincolnshire Council teams were left scratching their heads after being unable to remove the paint.
But one local firm which specialises in such cleaning stepped forward to restore the two statues free of charge.
Dry Ice UK, based on Europarc, sent engineers to blast the paint away with dry ice yesterday, restoring them to an almost new look.
Roy Nicolls, business development manager, said: "We heard about the damage and as a goodwill gesture to the area we wanted to help out.
"We work with the council to maintain parts of the area and felt it was appropriate to give something back to the community.
"As a local myself I was sad to see this happen. I drive along here regularly and always notice the lion statues.
"Because they are so prominent we wanted to help, often graffiti attracts more graffiti so it was important that we acted quickly.
"The statues are part and parcel of the area so we are keen to restore them to their former glory."
Engineers from the firm spent two hours working on the lions, using dry ice at an exact temperature of -78.6°C to remove the spray paint.
Councillor Ros James, who represents the Heneage ward on North East Lincolnshire Council, said: "We are extremely grateful to Dry Ice for doing this work. We attempted to get the graffiti off ourselves but we don't have the right equipment.
"It is very community spirited of them but it is appalling that these mindless vandals did this in the first place.
"I am a local girl and regularly come up here, I was disgusted that someone could damage the lions like that.
"For so many years people have been greeted by the sight of them at Weelsby Woods and it was sad to see this happen.
"We are really grateful for the help and will be glad when they are restored to what they should look like. I hope that people will see how good the lions look when the work is done and hope that will encourage people intent on vandalism to leave them intact."
Police are still appealing for anyone with information about the vandalism to call them on 101, quoting crime reference ac2010013/2013.
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