THE City of Vincent is experiencing a massive spike in graffiti tagging, with reported incidents this year going “through the roof”, according to Mayor John Carey.
Figures released by the City revealed 1300 incidents have been reported so far in 2016, a huge leap from 400 at the same time last year.
The City has already spent almost $300,000 cleaning up graffiti tags since the 2014-15 financial year.
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READ NOW“It has gone through the roof,” Mr Carey said.
“We were shocked by the rapid escalation in the last few months.
“If you look at statistics, we are well beyond what we were last year and our team are telling us they are being swamped by graffiti.
“We’re asking the community to keep their eyes open because it is active surveillance by our local residents (which gets action).
Lenny Buonomo, who is contracted by the City to clean up tagging, said his workload had noticeably increased.
“Sometimes on William Street, I clean it up Sunday morning and on Monday they do it again,” he said.
“I’d like to see some CCTV cameras there.”
Mr Carey said incidents had been reported to the police and the City was looking into further resources to fight graffiti.
“There are discussions now what further resources we can put into this because we literally have someone out every day cleaning up graffiti,” he said.
“We have made some applications for some areas, but the thing is, Beaufort Street has about 40 cameras and they still tag.”
Mt Hawthorn Primary School P&C President Scott Yelland said the school community also was aware of the issue.
“All of a sudden it went from nothing to a lot,” he said.
“It is on kerbs, power poles, fences, signs, everywhere.”
City of Vincent graffiti statistics
Financial year Reported incidents Cost
2014/15 1,967 $146,500
2013/14 2,062 $145,000
2015/16 2,248 Final costing not yet determined