Almost
£100 million spent cleaning the UK's graffiti each year
Local Authorities in England each spend an average of £75,000 cleaning up
graffiti every year while Transport for London spends £20 million a year.
A survey by ENCAMS of over 10,000 sites across England found graffiti at over
a fifth of these areas - although some incidents were so small that they were
virtually unnoticeable to people passing through.
Hotspots for graffiti include back alleys, footbridges, subways and transport
areas. Of the nine English regions, London is the most blighted by graffiti.
Traditionally it was assumed that graffiti writers came from socially disadvantaged
backgrounds, but the London Assembly Graffiti Investigative Committee found that
the economic, social and ethnic background of an individual was largely irrelevant
in determining whether daubing graffiti would become a hobby. Age was a more important
factor with 'tagging' predominantly carried out by males aged between 11 and 16
years, with more advanced pieces created by older writers.
A survey of local authorities by ENCAMS revealed that 89% of them thought graffiti
was a problem. As a result, almost half of them had a special hotline for the
public to report graffiti and a special team to deal with the problem.
ENCAMS believes there should be a clamp down on multi-national companies that
use graffiti images sprayed onto walls and buildings as a means of advertising.
It says that this kind of advertising constitutes corporate anti-social behaviour
and should not be tolerated.
"Irrespective of what it looks like or how much skill is involved, graffiti
is criminal damage that costs councils and rail companies millions of pounds each
year to remove," says Fiona Campbell, Director of ENCAMS. "The police
have sophisticated techniques to collect evidence. Anyone caught doing graffiti
will be handed a fine or prosecuted.
"However, we would like to see education used much more as a way of preventing
graffiti in the first place."
