Pressure on to get graffiti removed

8:30am Monday 7th July 2008

WEST Wiltshire District Council is increasing pressure on the owners of private property that has been defaced by graffiti.

The council's cabinet voted on Wednesday to work harder to encourage owners to have the graffiti removed.

Councillors decided to write to Wiltshire County Council about removing graffiti from its own property, such as the footbridge from the Town Park to Tesco Extra in County Way, Trowbridge.

The district council's community safety team will now deal with complaints of this type of graffiti and liaise with partners, particularly the police, to address the problem.

The approach would include assessing why the graffiti has appeared and who could have done it, contacting the property owner to let them know and encouraging them to remove it, providing them with a list of companies that can remove it and working with them and other partners to deal with the underlying cause.

They also said they wanted the offenders, if caught, to be made to clear off the graffiti themselves.