Proactive approach to tackling graffiti

Published on 13 February 2024

Council is taking an innovative approach to tackling graffiti at a number of high-profile locations as part of its expanded city-wide beautification program.

The approach will include doubling the number of staff in its graffiti team, with new team members dedicated purely to proactive graffiti patrols and removal.

Until now, graffiti removal from Council property has been driven by community feedback, with staff prioritising the most offensive graffiti and removing this within 24-48 hours of receiving a request.

But from early 2024 – as well as this reactive response – Council’s new graffiti team members will be out proactively patrolling key high-profile locations across the city and removing graffiti from Council property.

This is expected have several flow-on effects - Each year we remove a total area of graffiti equal to about two MCGs and this comes at a significant cost to ratepayer, but also affects perceptions of the municipality.

We know this a great city in which to live, work and play and Council is working hard to ensure this is reflected in Frankston City presentation. Taking a multi-pronged approach to tackling graffiti is one of the ways we are doing this.

As the new graffiti team will be working to remove graffiti from several high-profile locations before it’s reported, that will then mean that the reactive removal staff will be able to reduce response times to graffiti that is reported to Council.

We are also hoping that the graffitists will tire of seeing their tags removed quickly and will stop targeting Council property.

Council is also continuing to engage State Government departments with graffiti affected infrastructure across Frankston City. These include road and rail authorities. Council is unable to remove graffiti from these State Government owned assets in case of potential damage for which Council could be liable.