On Queensland’s Gold Coast, graffiti is at an all-time low with clean-up costs slashed by 40 percent in four years.
Mayor Tom Tate said vigilant residents reporting graffiti via the City App had played a major role in driving down the incidents of graffiti.
“These graffiti vandals love seeing their tag on display.
“Residents have played a vital role in rapidly identifying the graffiti so we can get our crews out there to clean it up.
“I applaud every Gold Coaster who has uploaded to our app and reported graffiti.’’
Four years ago, graffiti vandalism cost the City around $1 million annually.
Last financial year, it had dropped to $594,000 – a reduction of almost 40 percent.
The number of graffiti removals has dropped from 7496 in 2015-16 to 4732 in 2017-18.
“Civic pride is alive and well on the coast so my message to the vandals is: get a life.
“We have a zero tolerance approach and we work with police to seek prosecution.
“Our dedicated clean-up crews provide a quick response right across the city and we have over 500 CCTV cameras around to capture these vandals red-handed.’’
Reported graffiti is removed within five working days, with offensive graffiti removed within one working day of it being reported.
The City removes graffiti free of charge from private property as long as the graffiti is accessible from public land.
