City of Melbourne Council has announced it will proactively patrol graffiti hotspots to keep the city scrubbed clean.
Council says its Rapid Response Clean Team will patrol graffiti hotspots in neighbourhoods outside of the CBD, while increasing team response rates by 50% to remove graffiti quicker.
“Over the next 12 months, we’ll continue to do everything we can to keep our city clean and safe – moving faster to remove graffiti and targeting higher risk locations,” said Melbourne Lord Mayor, Sally Capp.
“We’re building on the success of the Graffiti Blitz – delivering a new plan to crack down further on repeat offenders, while making it easier to report graffiti across our neighbourhoods.”
“We’re scrubbing the city clean like never before – we’ve more than tripled the amount of graffiti cleaned every month since the start of the pandemic and seen graffiti reporting double in this time.”
Building on its momentum from this year’s Graffiti Blitz, more than 106,000m2 of graffiti has been cleaned – a 140% increase before the blitz that occurred between March and June, the Lord Mayor said.
The introduction of a QR code reporting system saw residents and visitors play a greater role in reporting graffiti, recording an approximate 60% rise in reporting during this period, she said.
The success of the program has helped Council to identify graffiti ‘hot spots’ and allowed it to develop a Graffiti Management and Prevention Plan.
This includes a detailed database of the types of graffiti across the city and the locations most at risk of repeat offences, such as:
• Hoddle Grid – Elizabeth St to Swanston St;
• Adjacent to RMIT Campus – Latrobe St to Franklin St;
• Docklands – Collins St to Latrobe St;
• North Melbourne – Errol St & Victoria St ;
• Carlton – Lygon St to Rathdowne St.
Since the graffiti blitz began in March, the Rapid Response Clean Team has completed more than 34,200 jobs.
Almost 40% of the graffiti removed was from the central city, followed closely by North Melbourne and Carlton (37%), while West Melbourne and Kensington accounted for 16% of total graffiti jobs.
More than 75% of the Clean Team’s work was on privately owned commercial buildings and private street assets, including 10% from private residential properties and 12% from Council-owned assets.
“Our Rapid Response Clean Team has done a remarkable job to date – and we’re making sure we continue to improve graffiti prevention measures and clear more waste from our streets,” said Deputy portfolio lead for City Transport, Infrastructure and Operations, Davydd Griffiths.
“A big thanks to those who have reported graffiti through our QR codes. This joint effort is helping to keep our streets clean for residents, businesses and visitors.”
