Government Business

Graffiti is just one of the environmental crimes seen as a sign of an uncaring and indifferent society. Alongside litter, chewing gum, dog fouling, flytipping and fly posting, graffiti makes an area look unsightly and run down.

Illegal marking
Graffiti is illegal markings made to walls and other surfaces and covers a wide variety of forms and styles including ‘masterpieces’, ‘tags’, juvenile scribbles, scratching and etching. It may be regarded by some as a creative, artistic undertaking requiring considerable skill, however, irrespective of what it looks like or the ability required, graffiti is criminal damage that costs land managers and businesses millions each year to remove.
    
The estimated cost of graffiti to the country is over £1 billion a year, and costs each council in England £75,000 every year to remove. London Underground alone believes it costs up to £10m a year to replace all the glass that is etched with graffiti, in addition to the £2.5m annually needed to clear up other types of graffiti.

Affected hotspots
The problem of graffiti occurs in many different areas, on walls, street furniture, telephone boxes, bus shelters, monuments and railway land. Across England graffiti is not a major problem, it tends not to be widespread but focused in hotspots where the problem is intense.
    
When it does occur it is highly visible and has a huge impact on the public in their perception of the area. This was highlighted in a survey in which 77 per cent of Londoners listed graffiti as a quality of life concern.
    
Due to its nature, graffiti is often located in places where it will gain maximum exposure, thus it can have an enormous impact on the fear of crime in an area. Streets tattooed with tags and scrawl makes people feel unsafe when they walk down them, and for residents who live with this burden it is quite unsettling.
    
For those whose property is defaced by graffiti the markings are a form of vandalism that is unwelcome, distressing and difficult to remove. Research into the perception of crime has showed that the public are more concerned about graffiti and vandalism in their area than they are about drug dealing.  
    
The visual impact of graffiti can rapidly diminish the desirability of an area, and lead to a lack of respect for the place in which people live, work and play. Top graffiti hotspots such as subways and train stations can also give a terrible first impression of any town.

Removal and prevention
Local authorities are responsible for removing graffiti from their land and this can act as a drain on local authority resources. As well as being expense to remove, jet washes and chemicals that are used to scrub off graffiti can damage buildings.  
    
Graffiti found on items such as telephone boxes, bus shelters and electricity boxes is the responsibility of the company that has placed them there. Although private buildings are not the local authority’s responsibility they will often assist with removal.
    
Those caught causing graffiti can be prosecuted under the Criminal Damage Act 1971, although prosecutions for graffiti are infrequent. Under the Anti-social Behaviour Act local authorities can issue fixed penalty notices to anyone caught in the act of producing graffiti. The New Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act has increased this to £75.
    
Keep Britain Tidy believes that for everyone to enjoy clean and safe environments, graffiti cannot be a part of it. Ridding the community of this needs a variety of approaches including education and diversionary tactics like granting access to computers for people to practice graphic design instead.
    
A number of councils are using graffiti walls to try and combat the problem. Keep Britain Tidy are in favour of them as long as they are managed properly. Local authorities need to ensure that they are giving out the right message and must handle the use of them very carefully.

Changing attitudes
According to a new report by Keep Britain Tidy, people’s attitudes to graffiti are changing. Due to the popularity of figures such as Banksy, people now differentiate between different types of graffiti.
    
Keep Britain Tidy wants to change people’s attitudes to all environmental crimes, to make them unacceptable, at a time when they appear to be the norm. The Big Tidy Up campaign, launched on 1 September is a national call to arms for an unprecedented month-long blitz on litter. Thousands of schools, businesses and community groups are taking part in the biggest litter pick in history, highlighting the shift in people’s attitudes – people are fed up with litter in their neighbourhood and are actively working towards making their local community cleaner.  
    
Since Women’s Institute chair Lady Elizabeth Brunner kick-started Britain’s anti-litter movement in the 1950’s, Keep Britain Tidy has worked to improve the local environmental quality of communities through campaigning and education.  
    
Keep Britain Tidy also runs the ‘Cleaner Safer Greener’ network to assist local authorities and other land managers to improve performance in local environmental quality, as well as being involved in training and running courses for local authority staff on issues such as tackling environment crime.

For more information
For further information on all environmental issues visit www.encams.org
To learn more about The Big Tidy Up campaign, visit www.thebigtidyup.org