Antisemites have targeted communities celebrating the Jewish New Year after spray-painting a “despicable” swastika on a wall.

Councillor Pav Akhtar said he was shocked when he spotted the graffiti which had been painted on the weekend of Rosh Hashanah, the first of the Jewish High Holy Days.

The offensive symbol appeared in an alleyway in Plungington, near Preston, Lancs., on Sunday in the United Kingdom.

The horrified councillor has urged anyone who knows the perpetrators to come forward are report them. “I was horrified to see such hateful imagery re-emerge here in Plungington” he said.

This comes as part of a spate of Nazi-inspired racist graffiti found on walls around the city.

In May this year, graffiti depicting Nazi symbolism and racist slurs were daubed on a bridge and on three separate streets.

Coun Akhtar, who has reported the vandalism to the city council, tweeted: “Another despicable incident of Neo-Nazi graffiti has appeared in Plungington this Rosh Hashana weekend.”