Falmouth residents are angry after graffiti appeared on a roundabout and walls at Bar Road and Maritime car park last weekend.

The graffiti was spotted by the owner of nearby Marine Gallery, Nick Gibbard, who said he saw the perpetrators at around 3.30am on October 7.

Mr Gibbard claimed he saw a group of about 30 young people, who he said were students, spraying the graffiti on the roundabout and on the wall and floor of the tourist coach stop in the car park, and called upon the university to take steps to clean up the mess.

That evening he said he saw "hundreds of students walking up the road towards the docks.

He said: "They were well natured, just chatting away, but there was obviously a party on somewhere - I thought a beach party but more likely a house party.

"At 3.30am dozens were coming in the opposite direction and they congregated on the roundabout, very well natured, but the next day there was graffiti all over the roundabout."

Mr Gibbard said he could tell they were students because they were not local, didn't know where they were going, and were all aged between 18 and 20.

As the group was creating quite a lot of noise, and he was still dressed from working late, Mr Gibbard decided to go for a walk.

He said: "I walked in amongst them, one asked where the taxi rank was, they were trying to get back to wherever they came from. I got the impression they were freshers.

"They are all of the same age, they all looked new, I've never seen any of them [in town] before.

"It's that time of year, and I've seen plenty of this in the past,. It seems to be this time of year and late May and June."

He added that he wasn't against the students or bothered by their being there, "it's just the graffiti."

A spokesperson for Falmouth University said: "There’s no evidence that this graffiti was the work of Falmouth University students but a member of our estates team will take a look and see if we can clean it up as it does look very unsightly."

A University of Exeter spokesperson added: "There is no evidence that students from the University of Exeter were involved in this incident.  However any such evidence would be taken extremely seriously and would be fully investigated."

Devon and Cornwall Police said they had no record of any complaints regarding graffiti in the area.