Plans to paint poetry in a children’s playground to stop taggers have been criticised by residents, who say they’d rather the tagging was painted over more quickly.
St Luke’s Residents Association has been regularly asking the council to paint over tagging on the toilet block in the playground, which is regularly targeted by graffiti vandals.
Earlier this month, ward councillor Tristram Burden launched a survey asking people which “mental health affirming” line of poetry they would like to see painted on the block to deter vandalism.
But meanwhile, the latest batch of tagging has not been cleaned off.
Chair of the association Simon Charleton said: “Two weeks have passed since we reported this graffiti in the children’s playground. Instead of quibbling about murals, the council could have painted it out by now.
“We don’t need a big debate about what murals to paint on the walls: just paint out the graffiti and keep the toilets clean and well maintained. Get the basics right.
“I’m not against murals per se but that shouldn’t get in the way of quick response and pro active policing.”
Secretary of the association Sharon Davis said “Personally I think the affirming messages are inappropriate for the target area of a play area. A fun colourful mural would have been nicer – not words.”
Councillor Burden said: “Emblazoning the Queen’s Park toilets with both an uplifting message and a colourful mural will hopefully achieve two things. Brighten up the place even more, and once covered with anti-graffiti paint, make the toilets impossible to tag.
Once we have a quote, artist and timeframe agreed, we’ll begin work. Just as murals have recently brought such joy to residents of Coombe Road area, it’s hoped that a mural will provide the same.
“This is very much in the planning stage, currently. But with the repeated tagging that occurs, a long term solution is necessary, and long term sustainable solutions are the preference of this administration, not wasteful, short term acts.
“Unfortunately, the police still seem unable to get on top of the issue. So we need to explore other methods. Our full updated graffiti reduction strategy will be released soon.”
The council’s “refreshed” graffiti strategy is due to be debated by councillor’s at next week’s city environment committee. The agenda and most of the reports have now been published, but the graffiti strategy is marked as “to follow”.
Councillor Burden is due to speak to residents at the next meeting of the residents association at 7pm on Monday at St Luke’s Church.
Users of the park are being asked to vote on which line of poetry they would like to see.
The options are:
1. Which message from James McInerney’s Poetry Project shall we emblazon across Queen’s Park loos?
- You are mighty, a force unknown
Your heart needs no one to feel complete.
Inhale. Exhale.
Rinse. Repeat.
- Dance among strangers as if they were friends.
- Look to the light; the shadows will fade.
- Yesterday I was.
Tomorrow I will be.
Today I’ll take my time and enjoy being me
The thing about combating tagging with tagging is that it’ll just get tagged over with more tagging. Trust me when I say that taggers have far more experience tagging over tags than the council has at tagging.
If they are going to bother using an AGC – there are a few considerations there, the new nanoparticle technology ones are really expensive. Cheaper stuff needs reapplying and only makes the cleaning off of graffiti easy by being a sacrificial layer.
Perhaps Councillor Burden would also like the residents to join hands in a rousing rendition of Kumbaya while he’s at it, in the hope that poetry and song will stop the taggers.
Have youths of today got more cunning? It used to be as simple as photographing and recording each tag ‘signature’ around the city, catch them in the act once, and then use the tag signature as evidence for multiple offences.
If the stagger is to young make the parent pay. Also fine shop who sold the paint as this is also illegal.
Yeah, the law doesn’t work that way, Mark. Selling paint isn’t illegal, otherwise, Dulux would basically be mafia.
Police need to step up to the plate and catch a few of these taggers and make an example of them. Its not difficult they know who they are and where and when they tag . Set up a sting operation at the Art Deco Bus Shelters at the Old Steine .
Something really needs to be done about these smelly, sociopathic little goblins.
Yes, yes, But what about the taggers?
Perhaps the complaining residents of the area could club together to buy a bucket of paint and some rollers and engage in some community upkeep if they are so bothered about stifling the early years of what could be the next banksy.
It’s ridiculous, the Scot who got kicked out of Edinburgh for tagging, now ‘plies his trade’ here! The bloke even had a front page story and his mugshot on the evening argus, lol. Yet, he still goes around putting his crap tag all over peoples buildings, couldn’t make it up, it’s like we woke up in a parallel universe, either that or the Council/Police are just useless idiots being paid OUR money so can carry on being useless as unlike the private sector, they won’t be hold accountable …..you decide which one it is!
council should give the young people some paint to do this themselves
each child under 18 should get a can of spray paint every year
only way they will learn
Community Payback does still exist, I’d like to get them involved in the communities again.