ABERGAVENNY Town Council has defended its decision to use an AI created postcard of the town as part of its application to become the next UK Town of Culture.

Local people reacted with shock yesterday when the postcard, which shows a fictionalised streetscape backed by three identical mountains, mis-labelled as the Sugar Loaf, the Blorenge and the Skirrid, was published.

In a statement issued today the council has defended the choice of postcard saying, “Abergavenny Town Council would like to thank everyone who shared our UK Town of Culture Postcard and actively supported us yesterday with our bid to be shortlisted.”

“We would take this opportunity to publicly thank the design team who helped us create and submit an image in the tight timeframe we had on this occasion. All this has been created for free and we are incredibly grateful for this kind and generous contribution.

“In response to comments that we submitted an AI image for this task I would like to explain how the image was created. This image started life as a hand drawn sketch then we used our own stock photos of buildings and AI was used to merge these into the right places on the image. The rest is all edited in Photoshop, with tweaks by hand where we had time.

“Images of our mountains are copyrighted. It costs £150 a time to use an image if you haven't got a photo yourself of the mountain from the right angle.

Town council's message to Department of Culture, Media and Sport

"We absolutely loved undertaking this task and felt it was a brilliant and creative way to celebrate the places taking part while recognising the tremendous effort that has gone into each bid. The concept has sparked some exciting ideas for us should our application be successful.

“One idea we are particularly enthusiastic about is having the postcards professionally printed and made available through our Tourist Information Centre during our year as Town of Culture. Any proceeds generated would be donated back to the Tourist Information Centre as part of our commitment to supporting its long-term sustainability and helping it continue to serve the community as a vital tourism resource.

“We see great potential in the line artwork created for the reverse of the postcard. We would love to incorporate this style into our wider marketing and promotional materials throughout the year, creating a recognisable visual thread across our Town of Culture branding and communications.

“We would also like to applaud the team for developing such an imaginative approach to this stage of the process. The idea that every participating town will have its place preserved within the digital museum and national archive is incredibly meaningful. It ensures that, regardless of the final outcome, the passion, creativity and ambition demonstrated by each town is acknowledged and celebrated as part of this important moment in our cultural story.

“Thank you again for the opportunity to contribute, and we look forward to seeing the incredible collection of postcards from across the UK."


“We did the absolute best we could in the tight timeframe we had with the images we knew we could use without infringing any copyright.

“We can only apologise that this wasn't explained when the postcard was shared for the UK wide exercise yesterday, and we hope this serves as an explanation.

“The responses from DCMS have always been positive. Our hope, should we get shortlisted, is that everyone will come together and support all suggestions and ideas that get generated, so we can collectively submit a reflection of Abergavenny showcasing the Culture in our Landscape.

“For anyone into their selfies, there is now a A3 sized postcard in the Tourist Information Centre, and also in the Library, for anyone who wishes to support our bid and come take their selfie with this and share the news that we have submitted a bid to become the UK Town of Culture 2028.

Commenting on the Abergavenny Chronicle’s Facebook page freelance illustrator Andy Frazer said, “This choice of image for Abergavenny’s bid is a slap in the face to all the local artists and broader creative community.

“Generative AI is a direct and deliberate assault on our livelihoods and the arts in general, and it’s unbelievable to see it being used in this context. I know for a fact that a number of local artists and illustrators would gladly have supplied artwork for this, as would, for example, a local school. Any one of which would have been a better - not to mention more ethical and environmentally sound - alternative.

“Regardless of the personal offence this has caused to the local arts community, it completely undermines the integrity of Abergavenny’s bid, which I suspect now has zero chance of success. The people reviewing the bids will doubtless share artist’s feeling about generative AI, and will not take kindly to its use here.

“This is a real shame, as it could have brought so many benefits to the whole community.But here we are. The council chose to take the zero-effort approach, and now we all have to pay the price. I’m not sure whether I am more sad, or angry at this point. But there is no excuse for this. A separate (though not unimportant issue) is the complete absence of Cymraeg from this post card. Presumably AI struggled with that too. Shameful.”