Brum fails smear test

Birmingham,UK

By Jane Tyler, Evening Mail

The Keep Britain Tidy group today criticised Birmingham for not doing enough to tackling graffiti yobs and even accused it of promoting their vandalism.

The group said it cost council tax-payers £27 million nationwide each year to remove graffiti tags and daubings.

And it said surveys had found the public were more worried about vandalism and graffiti in their area than they were about drunkenness, noise and drug dealing.

In Birmingham, Moor Street station car park and the Soho Loop canal were singled out as being the graffiti yobs' favourite hang-outs.

But Keep Britain Tidy condemned Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery for its 2002 exhibition celebrating Wolver-hampton graffiti artist Arron Bird.

Mark Vickerstaff, regional director of Keep Britain Tidy, said that while the group sympathised with councils fighting graffiti on limited budgets, it also criticised those who set up dedicated "graffiti walls" where writers could "ex-press themselves".

Mr Vickerstaff said: "Graffiti is crime. It's as simple as that.

"Giving someone a wall to write on is like giving a burglar a house full of goods to practice breaking and entering.

"There is also no evidence to say they reduce graffiti and they become yet another eyesore."

The group's survey also discovered that more than half of councils had no hotline to report incidents and just over half said they had no dedicated team to remove graffiti.

A Birmingham City Council spokesperson said: "There is a graffiti problem, but we don't accept the city council has failed to respond.

"We deal with offensive or racist graffiti within 24 hours, and often much quicker, and we have involved warden schemes across the city to identify offenders and deal with graffiti themselves.

"We are having further discussions with the police about the worst offenders and street furniture is being treated to be graffiti-resistant."

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