Love locks - basically just vandalism?

[SnoozingFox]

Piece on the One Show about those people who attach padlocks to bridges and it's being pushed as an "awwww isn't this lovely, it's a gesture of love, people come back every year to see their lock, such as shame when they have to be removed" and I'm sitting thinking the opposite.

It's no different from scratching your initials into the bricks of a castle, or spray painting a wall. Vandalism. Nobody cares that some random bridge is where you had your first date or your boyfriend proposed. Nobody wants to walk across a city centre bridge covered in padlocks which the council then eventually have to pay to remove.

Leave no trace.

Agree totally.

It’s a very lovely sentiment but one lock then attracts many. This causes problems with maintenance, repairs and upkeep. Eventually they can affect structural tolerance and load bearing, potentially threatening historic structures that have stood for hundreds of years before a shed load of people bought cheap Matalan/Amazon suitcase locks and clamped them on.

I think if your relationship breaks down it should be classed as a littering offence if you don’t go back and remove it within a set period. That should get rid of a lot of them 😆

But it's not a "lovely sentiment". It's so self absorbed thinking that anyone else on the planet is in any way interested in your relationship. If you want to put a lock on some place meaningful, do it on your own property, not at a beauty spot or tourist site where thousands of others have to be subjected to your vandalism.

I think its just silly tbh. I've never seen the point.

As a council tax payer it's annoying that it's something else for the council to squander their money on, having to clean rusting locks up.

Yeah it's load of bollocks. The bridge from Tate modern to St Paul's would be completely covered by now if they weren't constantly being removed

It looks so bloody tacky. Then the very people who put them on the railings without permission moan because they get removed. It's such entitled thinking. Ugh.

Nah, they can be cut off.

People want to do something cute.

It’s fine.

Tacky

I think we could all think on much better things for Councils to be spending their money on.

That's like saying it's fine if loads of people shit in the street, as it can be hosed down 🙄

I think if your relationship breaks down it should be classed as a littering offence if you don’t go back and remove it within a set period.

It's not a lovely sentiment. Nothing like a bit of criminal damage to say true lurve, eh?...

Pooh sticks is much better. Whoever's stick comes through first gets to keep the fine china after the divorce.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/thousands-lovers-locks-collapsed-part-overloaded-bridge-paris-180951705/

it’s eco unfriendly and costs everyone to remove - given how councils are struggling to pay for things that’s not great

performative nonsense

(signed - not a romantic)

Totally agree. They were on my local news. They look awful.

If you go onto the shoes on/shoes off threads people mention trailing shit in.

Clearly it happens.

Medieval Chic.

They completely ruin the Albert Dock in Liverpool.

There are plenty of cute things people could do that don't involve vandalism. In Paris they've had to put up plastic barriers along the Pont Des Arts because the stupid locks were causing structural damage to the bridge (as well as being an eyesore).

Its really no different to dropping litter imho. And its naff/tacky.

I agree, it is a cost to the Council that the money could be used better in many ways. It is a form of littering.

If you have a special spot to you and your partner, take a photo. Get if framed. Put it on your wall. Job done.

It's like the idiot tourists in Edinburgh who are literally rubbing away Greyfriar's Bobby because some equally idiot tourist guide 25 years ago made up the story it was "lucky".

I agree. There’s nothing romantic about them.

It was probably initiated by a lock manufacturer.
And they are possibly on here now, saying
"But it's cute..." 🤮

Completely agree. In Aveiro in Portugal, they ran a successful campaign to get people to use ribbons instead, and it’s much prettier (although I do realise there’s still an environmental impact).

The ribbons are not just from lovers, but between friends and families too.

I’m not a lock manufacturer. People like tweeting shit. Check out the decor in B&M.

I just think in the grand scheme of things it’s not a big deal.

Vapes with lithium batteries chucked on the ground is vandalism (and dangerous). No one seems bothered by that.

Twee. Not tweeting.