A group of artists – including a grandfather of five – spray-painted hundreds of yards of hoardings only for them to be painted over by the council the next day.

Lowfield Street in Dartford, left in ruins by Tesco after they binned plans to build a supermarket there, was covered in hoardings.

They were initially covered in messages from Tesco promoting the impending arrival of the new store but had been blanked out by Dartford council when the scheme was scrapped.

The council had its own plans to use the boards for a community art project, but a squad of rogue street artists swooped in to use them for their own massive artwork without permission from landowner Tesco or the council.

The graffiti was created between Barclays bank and the entrance to Central Park a few hundred yards away on Monday.

Gee Higgins, 43, a housing association construction manager who lives in Dartford, was one of between 10 and 15 artists of a similar age who assembled to paint the street.

He used to run a gaming technology business called Netplay in Lowfield Street until Tesco’s proposals, he says, stopped people going that far out of the town centre forcing his company to shut down.

He said: “It is something that we have wanted to do for a long time.

“At the weekend the conditions were right so the day before we just decided to get down there and do it.

“The police came up to us in the morning and asked us whether we had permission.

“Because it looked like an organised event we managed to convince them we were allowed and we got away with it.

“At the end of the day, it was never going to harm anybody was it?

“We improved the street. For the first time in years people were coming down the street to see what was going on and taking pictures. Our work attracted people down Lowfield Street.”

"The police came up to us in the morning ... we managed to convince them" - Gee Higgins, artist

Gee, a father-of-five and grandfather-of-five, has been creating street art since he was 15 and his work can be found all over the world, including other spots around Dartford, some near Central Park.

He believes the council has painted over thousands of pounds worth of art.

However, council leader Jeremy Kite saw things differently. The hoardings were cleared of the artwork on Tuesday.

He said: “We aren’t making any artistic judgement here.

“We are covering this up because we have already got a project planned with the Dartford Art Network which will involve everyone in the community.

“We want it to be a genuine community project.

“I think it is very presumptive of these guys to think they can come and paint whatever they like in the street.

“There are parts of the work which I like, but a lot of it is not very nice.

“The issue, though, is that this is supposed to be done by Dartford people, not people from the outside.”

Gee claimed that at least two of the artists involved were from Dartford while the others were from other locations.

Nick Buckley, treasurer for Dartford Arts Network, which the council has commissioned to create the approved art project, said he would be willing to work with the artists who created the paintings, something Gee said he would consider.