Redlands Liberal Democrats

BT boxes

I met with representatives of Streetcare and BT this morning to come up with a plan to tackle the graffiti on the green boxes and phone boxes.

This tends to be some of the longest-standing graffiti in the town and we do need to improve how quickly it is dealt with.

The manager from BT is the head of their UK estates, and having seen the problem, was very motivated to help.

Next steps are to compile a list of all the green boxes, phone boxes and related property in Reading for BT, while Streetcare will put together a cost estimate. Hopefully we should be able to target sufficient resources such that the problem can be greatly improved (even if total elimination might never be possible).

I will be reporting back to the Redlands NAG on this issue on Thursday

Team effort leads to graffiti prosecution

Daisy and graffiti on Fatherson Road 2007, originally uploaded by cllrdaisybenson.

Good news this week as the prolific tagger 'Persia' who attacked Redlands and much of central Reading with graffiti has been prosecuted by Police. The Police and the Council's Streetcare team have worked hard to gather evidence to bring this case to court and clean off the graffiti.

Kirsten and I reported a number of examples of his handiwork around the ward to Dave Bowler at Thames Valley Police. This evidence formed part of the case against the 'Persia' tagger. Dave maintains a database of all the graffiti 'tags', the signatures of the graffiti vandals: there are number of different tags - which is evidence of the range of different vandals at work in the Reading area at any one time.

The 'Persia' tagger alone has cost the Reading tax payer (and Network Rail) a lot of money.

See below a list of the cost of his criminal damage:

- Palmer Park children’s area   £100

- Palmer Park tennis court   £250

- Sainsbury’s, Friar Street   £792.34

- Zizzi restaurant, Kings Road  £345

- BT electronic cabinets   £445

- Friars Walk walls and rooftops  £915

- Telecom House, Friar Street  £1,326.97

- La Tasca, St Mary’s Butts  £329

- St Mary’s House, St Mary’s Butts  £898.77

- Sarah Batting Estate Agents, King Street  £375.72

- Network Rail offences caused to three bridges and impact on rail services c £10,000

Grand total  £15,777.80

Graffiti on the agenda

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:

1. The introduction of a third new graffiti clean-up van, with the latest specialist equipment to tackle graffiti;
2. 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;
3. 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;
4. 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.

Update: Allcroft Rd, Neighbourhood Action Group, University Forum...

Well, it has been a busy two or three weeks since the election.

In reverse order:

Allcroft Rd
The Allcroft Road application mentioned previously was turned down by the planning committee for among other reasons being out of keeping with the area. Thankyou to everyone who wrote regarding this application, or who came to the planning committee meeting tonight

Upper Redlands Rd
The results of the informal consultations at each end of Upper Redlands Rd have been reported back to residents on the road. If you did not see these, please contact Kirsten.

Redlands and University Neighbourhood Action Group
The NAG met on 10 May: the Police and Council brought a significant amount of data that confirmed where the key problems area are, in terms of graffiti and antisocial behaviour. There were no real surprises, but this data will support our requests for targeted resources to deal with graffiti across Redlands and anti-social behaviour in key parts of the ward.

University Forum
The University Forum discussed two main issues with local residents: anti-social behaviour from students,  and potential future development plans. The University has a policy of restorative justice with regard to the small minority of students who cause a nuisance, and certain cases were discussed, involving gnomes and hospital signs  (with a follow up of donations to hospitals and cleaning up mess...!). The plans for the Whiteknights site are at any early stage but some fairly big changes are envisaged: we will make sure they keep residents in touch with this.

And, finally, thank you to everyone who contacted us with good wishes, or with requests to deal with particular problems: we will make sure nothing is forgotten.

Tackling the Taggers

Reading Borough Council's plans for graffiti are, on the face, of it a good thing.  Graffiti has been a problem in the town for some time, and Liberal Democrats have been campaigning alongside local residents to get it removed from property belonging to private owners without charge. It is simply wrong if the victim of graffiti is then charged by the Council for the clean up.

Unfortunately,  the Labour-controlled Council has been slow to react: it's taken more than a year to get them to respond. There's a need for a "Big Clean Up" because Labour in Reading has allowed a Big Mess to be created.

There will be a need to make sure that every piece of graffiti is both reported and cleaned up. The people responsible for this criminal damage must be found and brought before the Courts. Let's do the job properly and take our neighbourhoods back from the taggers.

RBC Graffiti policy

One of the local Labour councillors has written to the Evening Post to brag about all the extra money that Reading BC are spending on graffiti removal.  We challenge him to get something done about the huge expanse that despoils Lydford Road.  He is very careful not to say whether this money is available for the removal of graffiti from private property or whether private home owners are to be charged in excess of £50 per hour for this service which is provided free by many LibDem run councils in the country.

.

I hope he arranges for his Labour cronies on the council cabinet to provide the resources to get this removed and allow the residents to get their quiet lane back to normal

LibDem Success in Council Chamber

Reading LibDem Leader and Redlands Councillor Daisy Benson scored a major success in the council chamber last night when they forced the ruling Labour group to admit that their proposals would not cover removal of graffiti from all private properties.

An amendment to the budget proposed by Bob Green forced the admission that the extra funds in the council's budget would not provide this important service that is provided free by many LibDem councils to get on top of this modern urban scourge.