Tomorrow evening the Council's Environment Scrutiny Panel will be discussing the Big Clean Up Campaign. As Lib Dem environmment spokesperson and member of the Panel, Gareth Epps will be attending this meeting.
22% of Reading's streets have been seriously defaced by graffiti taggers, according to Council officers. The Council collects data on the amount of graffiti that is visible from the public highway and this forms part of the Council's annual performance inspection by the Audit Commission.
Graffiti in public places like Cemetary Junction and London Road makes the local area look neglected and rundown. This can lead also lead to other anti-social behaviour. If you tackle the visible signs of vandalism i.e. by removing graffiti from public areas, you reduce the likelihood of more vandalism occuring or so the broken window theory goes.
You can read Streetcare's report on graffiti to the Panel here.
The four key elements of the Council's approach are as follows:
- The introduction of a third new graffiti clean-up van, with the latest specialist equipment to tackle graffiti;
- The deployment of a further two specialist graffiti teams just for a year, clamping down on long standing graffiti which has spoiled the look of neighborhoods for a long time. This is a particular problem because it becomes part of the landscape and people don't bother to report it;
- After the Big Graffiti Clean-up in a particular area of the town, the introduction of free graffiti removal of ‘tagging’ of up to one square metre in size from private properties, and the removal from small businesses or housing association properties for a small cost;
- Partnership work with the police developed further to bring about more enforcement and prosecutions.
This is good stuff; we just need to make sure that the Council continues to invest resources into tackling graffiti and also spends wisely on diversionary tactics to prevent repeat attacks. We believe strongly that a one off clean up is needed alongside ongoing work to prevent graffiti building up in public places
The Lib Dems campaigned hard to get the Council to clean graffiti free of charge from private properties and I was pleased to see the Council change it's policy on this issue last year.
Alexandra Road, Kendrick Road, Fatherson Road and The Mount to name three areas suffered very badly last year. I successfully pressed the Council to prioritise Redlands when it launched it's Big Clean up Campaign. This year Eldon Terrace, Bede Walk and Donnington Road seems to have been singled out by taggers.
Despite the great efforts made by Streetcare officers and the local Police over the past years, tagging continues to be a problem around Redlands and I know is is an issue of real concern to residents.
We get regular reports about graffiti from consituents, and Kirsten and I have reported a large amount of it to RBC for cleaning. Apparently the Council received 100 reports from councillors about graffiti last year - one officer told me he reckoned I must account for a majority of all reports which is a slightly dubious record of achievement!
The Newtown and Redlands & University Neighbourhood Police Team working with the Council have done a good job of identifying individual tags and logging them on their database. As a result a number of prosecutions against individual taggers have been brought.
Around Hexham Road, the flat blocks have been vandalised frequently although I'm glad to see this problem seems to be reducing since the doors to the blocks were secured.
So what now?
The Lib Dems would like to see the Council invest in more diversionary tactics such as a graffiti wall for central and east Reading. This is an idea has been road-tested by Lib-Dem controlled Woodley Town Council and has proved popular with local residents and the Police. As one officer remarked graffiti walls are "the long term solution" to taggers.
We would also like to see RBC push ahead in getting an agreement with Virgin Media to deal with the continual problem of graffiti on green electrical boxes which are frequently targets of the taggers.
Members of the Lib Dem team (including me!) will shortly be getting trained on how to use one of RBC's graffiti cleaning kits so we can help take an active role in cleaning up the area. In the meantime, if you see any graffiti in your area which you would like RBC to deal with please email me or telephone RBC on 0800 834 035.
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