Areas in Melbourne’s CBD with highest rate of graffiti
A number of tourist favourites have emerged as hot spots for graffiti vandals to target.
Victoria
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Bourke Street Mall, Chinatown and Elizabeth St are the “hot spots” in the city grid for graffiti vandals, a new council report says.
Those areas of town are the “highest repeat-offended graffiti areas” according to the report provided to the City of Melbourne in late April.
The Flinders St and Collins St block (between Queen St and Swanston St) and Little Collins St (between Swanston and Queens St) complete the top five.
Lord Mayor Sally Capp told the Herald Sun several pockets had been identified in the CBD as being prone to illegal tagging.
“We’re providing that data to Victoria Police to identify and crack down on offenders, and prevent future offending,” Ms Capp said.
“We’re also conducting more frequent proactive patrols, and investigating prevention methods to deter illegal tagging including the use of legal street art murals, plants and trees and graffiti prevention coatings.
“There’s no place for graffiti and illegal tagging in Melbourne.”
The City of Melbourne is in the midst of a “graffiti blitz” to combat vandalism across the municipality.
It has removed graffiti from 30,000sq m of surfaces since the beginning of March.
These five areas were identified as the “most likely re-occurring graffiti hot spots” as a result of the blitz, which has seen teams of cleaners hit the city streets with paint rollers.
They have swept through the Hoddle grid, Docklands, South Wharf and Southbank, with graffiti removal currently underway in South Yarra and North Melbourne.
More Melburnians have reported graffiti to the local council since the blitz began, with 2386 reports made in March compared with 937 in January.
“We’re doing everything we can to remove graffiti swiftly, but we can’t do it alone,” Ms Capp said.
“We’re calling on property owners and government agencies to clean up and maintain their assets, and for visitors to the city to report illegal tagging so it can be dealt with as quickly as possible.”
The City of Melbourne has invested more than $1.1m on graffiti removal this financial year.
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