By Alesha Capone
ILLEGAL graffiti has cost Wyndham City Council $430,000 to clean up over the past 12 months.
The amount is significantly higher than what the council spent during the previous year on the task, almost $295,000.
The council’s CEO, Kerry Thompson, said the money was spent on removing graffiti from city-owned and private property.
Ms Thompson also said the council’s Graffiti Unit has received 182 reports of graffiti on bridges, floodways and playgrounds in the past 12 months.
Wyndham’s mayor John Menegazzo said the council has a graffiti strategy policy, including a 24-hour telephone graffiti hotline which residents can contact.
Ms Thompson said the council also provided kits and a rebate to residents who needed to clean up illicit street art.
“We have a response time, so if it’s offensive graffiti and it’s on a building or something, then we will clean that up asap,” she said.
“We try to do both ends of it, the prevention and working with young people. It might not always be young people, but that’s what we try and do.
“Tagging is perceived as negative, it makes people feel unsafe, they don’t like it.”
Sergeant Pat Spezza from Wyndham police encouraged residents whose properties were graffitied to report the crime straight away.
“What happens sometimes, we do catch offenders for different offences and they tell us they have done other graffiti, but we can’t charge them for those because the victim of the crime hasn’t come forward,” he said.
Renowned western suburbs youth-worker Les Twentyman said gangs also used graffiti to mark their territory and young people sometimes put themselves into hazardous situations to paint graffiti, such as climbing onto trains.
“The risk factors they take to do the graffiti can be quite dangerous and sadly I think it cheapens the area,” he said.
“Sadly a lot of it, in fact 80 per cent, is just junk and rubbish and it gives the impression of slums and ghettos, that’s why people should clean it up as soon as it appears or it grows like cancer.”
Residents who want to report graffiti to the council can contact the 24-hour hotline on 9742 8140.
