Cllr Benson writes to express her disappointment at the deprioritisation of the 'Big Clean Up' campaign trumpeted by Reading's Labour administration, while Cllr Goodall says this is something which is a constant worry for residents as it is easily interpreted as a sign of urban decay.
The LibDem group has followed up by starting a facebook group to keep concerned residents informed. They have also set up a flickr group where you can upload examples of unwanted tags.
The flickr group is particularly useful because it will used to tell council workers what needs to be cleared up and where.
Labour lead councillor for the environment, Paul Gittings responded by disagreeing with the opposition LibDems, saying that "there is no let up in the battle" and tried to reassure people that his party has not become complacent - despite the recent surge in the numbers of tags spotted around town.
Meanwhile members of the public are unhappy at some of the methods used to obscure the signs of grafitti, pointing out that painting over tags with big grey rectangles can be just as ugly and can draw attention to the fact that location is a tag site.
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Update: It's obvious that some headway is being made when the satirists start calling you the vandal!
Arrests and reaction!
Oranjepan says:
Grafitti: it's not calligraphy when it's not in a designated space.
Sorry, but whilst I appreciate their efforts, I think a description of where the tags are would be smarter to post. Taggers want the attention, and displaying their work on a website is giving them plenty of it.
ReplyDeleteHi Nowtas,
ReplyDeletewhat's so bad about politicians trying to give people what they want?
The problem here is that grafitti 'artists' creative expression has been channeled in a bad way and has lead to criminal damage, but why is that? Are there not enough spaces to work beneficially without causing disruption? Are community leaders communicating effectively with people to teach the difference between positive and negative expressions and the different consequences of each?
I think showing the work is a double-edged sword. It might be gratifying for some of the taggers to get recognition, but at the same time it raises awareness of the issue which may lead to a previously oblivious parent showing more concern about the issues and discussing them at home.
Authorities can only work reactively to clear up after the event, so if we really want to prevent bad things from happening in the first place it's important to get in there beforehand.