There is art and then there is graffiti. 

While one has the ability to brighten up and modernise an entire streetscape, the other simply ruins it, costs thousands to remove and often leaves people feeling uneasy and unsafe. 

Sadly, the neglect of this building, which once took pride of place in the heart of Creswick, is not new.

The windows of the British Hotel have been boarded up for seven years, the facade is showing neglect and the interior is said to have been trashed.

The Hepburn Shire councillor for the Creswick ward, Don Henderson, said the council had done as much as it could because the building was privately owned. 

In 2012, Business and Tourism Creswick circulated a petition calling for the Hepburn Shire Council to encourage the owners to do something about the building. 

The petition attracted almost 300 signatures.

Time and again, once lively buildings like the Civic Hall have been left neglected due to indecision about what to do with them and they become an easy target for faceless vandals.

A collaborative approach is needed to combat such damage, particularly when it comes to historic buildings like the British Hotel.

This can be turned around.

An example of this will be the planned unveiling of the refurbished Provincial Ballarat on Lydiard Street North by the end of April.

Once a glaring eyesore, the site is well on the way to becoming a luxury apartment complex, cafe, piano bar and lounge area with a performance stage, gym for hotel guests and fine-dining kitchen.

The City of Ballarat and Hepburn Shire are already working in partnership with Victoria Police to combat graffiti, but there needs to be a tougher approach that instils respect in people to prevent them from becoming vandals.

And if they are caught, tougher measures or getting them to fix their own mess might just be two ways of stopping it from happening again.