Cash reward incentive to help identify city’s graffiti vandals

People who shop graffiti vandals to authorities could be given a £500 reward under a new plan to end the unsightly blight on the city.

The proposal, put together by Cllr Michael Dixey and backed by Cllr Nick Eden-green, would see the money handed over for information that leads to the conviction of taggers.

Cllr Dixey says the temptation of such a large sum of cash might be too much for some youngsters and lead to them turning in their peers to the council or police.

“For those in their teens, £500 is a big amount of money,” he said.

“A lot of young teens who know the taggers will be tempted by that and might identify them.

“This will really frighten offenders who know they stand the risk of being caught.

“The message that £500 is being offered will quickly make its way round these groups.”

Cllr Dixey’s proposal is being put to the full council tonight (Thursday) as a Notice of Motion, alongside other measures including using hidden cameras in graffiti hotspots.

“The cost of all this would be dwarfed by the cost of cleaning it up,” he added. “Graffiti is everywhere in the city - it’s ghastly.

“It is worse than ever despite the efforts of community groups, Serco and others to clean it off.”

His motion is being supported by his Lib Dem colleague Cllr Eden-green, who hopes the plan will be agreed.

“We need to use every possible measure that we can because graffiti is just so rife at the moment,” Cllr Eden-green said.

“What I’m particularly concerned about is not only do residents have to live with this, our tourists have to as well.

“The retail climate in Canterbury is pretty hard at the moment and we need to make the area as attractive as we can to encourage people to shop here, visit here and live here.”

Cllr Eden-green claims the council is not taking adequate measures to clean up the graffiti, of which incidents have soared by a staggering 30% in the past year.

“I think the council may use the argument of money and I know it has had its money cut, but if it can spend £8,500 on a pantomime strategy then it can spend money on cleaning graffiti,” he said.

“If it can spend £155 million buying Whitefriars, £9.1 million on Station Road West car park and £23 million on buying up flats in Parham Road at three times the market value, it can afford to clean graffiti.

“It can’t really use the argument of a lack of resources.”

In addition to hidden cameras and rewards, Cllr Dixey is asking for the authority to write to relevant retailers reminding them it is an offence to sell spray paint to minors, to publicly confirm it will remove graffiti from private property and redouble its efforts to clean up the mess left by taggers.

Council spokesman Leo Whitlock says a number of measures have been taken to tackle the issue in recent months.

“This is all at a cost to the council taxpayer at a time when that money could be used elsewhere,” he said.

“Our new online reporting system allows people to use their smartphone to give us an exact location and attach pictures of graffiti as well as alert others such as utility companies and Network Rail to graffiti on their property.

“Our contractor Serco carried out more than 500 major cleans in 2018 and this work was supplemented by the council’s new dedicated graffiti enforcement officer, who personally removed more than 200 tags.

“This officer is also gathering intelligence to help the police prosecute offenders, is pushing owners to give the council per- mission to clean graffiti off of their properties, is working with the utilities and others to ensure they clean their own property and is helping victims of repeated graffiti attacks to prevent them and reduce their cleaning costs.”

The motion will be discussed and referred to the community committee.

‘A lot of young teens who know the taggers will be tempted by that and might identify them. This will really frighten offenders’