Conservative Mayoral hopeful, Steve Norris, yesterday outlined his proposals to tackle graffiti and ‘tagging’ as part of his ‘Safer London’ campaign.
The proposals include a plede to fund 25 anti graffiti vans with specially trained staff to clean off the most offensive and visible graffiti in the capital. These graffiti ‘hit squads’ would target high profile sites where the owners have consistently refused to clean their buildings.
Mr Norris said: ‘Tackling graffiti could make a huge difference to the city. Graffiti is what makes too much of London look dirty and feel unsafe. It also creates an atmosphere where crime can flourish by sending out a message that no one really cares about the area. In New York, Rudy Giuliani cleaned up the city and, as a result, created a much safer city – I intend to learn from New York to clean up London. As Mayor, I also want to use the hit squads to embarrass organisations – both public and private – who seem unwilling to remove graffiti from public places.’
The funds for initiative would come from a scrapping of ‘The Londoner’ newspaper published by the Mayor and distributed to every London household.
