Complaints of graffiti in the CBD skyrocketing

Melbourne City council is losing its fight against graffiti and ugly tagging in the CBD, with complaints about vandals skyrocketing.

CBD Little Collins street trader Marlene Crowther has had her shop targeted by graffiti vandals. Picture: Jason Edwards

Graffiti has skyrocketed in Melbourne’s CBD, defying council efforts to rid the city of ugly tagging.

The Saturday Herald Sun can reveal the average number of requests to clean graffiti have doubled in Melbourne’s CBD, with community members also expected to send around 3000 clean-up requests this year.

The data from Snap, Send, Solve – which allows people to directly send a photo of an issue to the responsible council or authority – reveals there are eight reports sent to the app per day about graffiti in Melbourne’s CBD.

Graffiti complaints also soared last year with 28,243 reports made, compared to 18,614 the prior year.

The problem has become so severe that Victoria Police launched Operation Fade in the CBD in late February, targeting those involved in graffiti and vandalism.

Fourteen people had been arrested in just over a month and another eight cautioned.

Lord Mayor Sally Capp said: “The City of Melbourne has massively ramped up efforts to remove illegal graffiti and tagging, more than doubling our street cleaning team to ensure the city is sparkling as we welcome workers, students and visitors back.”

“In March, our Rapid Response Clean Team removed nearly 10,000m2 of graffiti from the central city, as part of our Clean Melbourne Graffiti Blitz,” she said.

“On Friday I met with inner metropolitan mayors to discuss what else can be done to tackle this increasing problem across Greater Melbourne.”

Graffiti in Degraves Street. Picture: Jason Edwards

Dozens of buildings and shop fronts along Swanston St, Elizabeth St and Flinders St – which including landmark golden-era buildings – have been covered repeatedly in graffiti tags.

Traders told the Herald Sun they were frustrated that vandals continued to deface dozens of buildings in Melbourne’s CBD, despite the council’s recent efforts to crackdown on graffiti taggers.

Marlene Crowther, who works as a valuer at Keshett Jewellery, said she was also angered after the corner of her shop on Balcombe Place was targeted by vandals who scrawled graffiti.

“It’s really disappointing to continue to see this happen,” Ms Crowther said.

“The council do often come quickly to remove graffiti, but the vandals are wasting the council’s money because it should be going towards helping businesses that are struggling.”

Rikki McAndrew, who owns McAndrew Jewellery on Little Collins St, said unsightly graffiti was being scrawled on businesses and in laneways within hours of the council removing it.

“I see graffiti all the time and it’s not being managed properly. I definitely think we need more cameras like there are in London to catch the vandals,” Mr McAndrew said.

He said tourists visiting from overseas and interstate were also complaining about Melbourne being overrun with graffiti.

“The tourists are telling me that they have a big problem with graffiti too, it’s very unattractive.”

Eleanor, who travelled from Sydney to attend the Formula One, said she noticed graffiti as soon as she walked off the train at Flinders St station.

Graffiti on Elizabeth Street. Picture: Jason Edwards

“It was the first thing I noticed, I think it’s very unattractive and brings down this beautiful city’s character,” she said.

“My family and I love travelling to Melbourne and it’s sad to see so many shop fronts and buildings covered in graffiti.”

The city has spent more than $1.1 million on graffiti removal this financial year, including new patrols to remove graffiti at heights.

The amount of graffiti cleaned every month has increased by more than 60 per cent since the start of the pandemic, from an average of 4000m2 a month in 2019 to over 6500m2 in 2021. Graffiti reporting has also doubled in this time - about 100 reports per day.

Snap Send Solve founder, Danny Gorog said the rise in graffiti reports in large part was due increased community engagement.

“While requests about graffiti have grown from 24 per cent of all requests up from 17 per cent, we see this as a product of greater community awareness about neighbourhood issues and using Snap Send Solve to fix them as well as Melbourne City Council’s graffiti blitz,” he said.

“At the same time, graffiti is getting cleaned faster than ever. Users of Snap Send Solve have reported that 68 per cent of all graffiti requests are solved up from 52 per cent last year.”

Graffiti problem: ‘out of control’

A frustrated resident living in Melbourne’s CBD says the council needs to take urgent action to fix the city’s “out of control” graffiti problem.

Andrew Richards said graffiti scrawled on the side of 21 Victoria St and the adjoining car park in Mackenzie St had been present for eight months.

“Nothing has been done to fix this, it’s out of control,” Mr Richards said.

“The graffiti that we complained about is still there and has been untouched by the council for all this time.

“Last week further graffiti was added to the building but the only action that the council has taken is to place hundreds of new signs on rubbish bins across the city advising the public to report graffiti.”

Mr Richards said he and other nearby residents obtained a quote to remove graffiti from the building.

“Over four months ago we offered an alternative plan. Our proposal is to use the same method that we regularly use along with most Melbourne office buildings, namely by a high rise abseiling window cleaning service from the roof of our building.

“This could be done immediately, would be far cheaper, simpler and more efficient than the method proposed by the council.

“It would remove (by repainting the wall) all the graffiti and would permanently seal it against future graffiti by applying two coats of Dulux Anti-Graffiti Protection. Any graffiti applied in future can be removed by high pressure water.”