Croydon Council has announced that it will no longer remove non-offensive graffiti from public places in an effort to save money.
The Council, which is under investigation for its financial decisions over previous years has made various cuts to council services over the past couple of months including redundancies and the disbanding of their dedicated graffiti removal team back in December.
The removal of graffiti will now fall onto the Council’s already spread thin Highways team.
The Council agreed that offensive graffiti should be removed, however they would not be making any efforts to remove non-offensive graffiti.
The Council clarified that they would contact land owners if the offensive graffiti was on private land, with it being their responsibility to remove it.
At a meeting earlier in the week, cabinet member for sustainable Croydon, Cllr Muhammad Ali, said:
“Under the streamlined service we have reviewed our approach to graffiti in the borough.
“The priority will be offensive graffiti on council land and this will be defined by graffiti using racist or inflammatory images, used as an attack against a group or individual and also graffiti using swear words, sexually explicit or obscene words and images.”
