Graffiti – Signs of Disengagement
TONY COLLINS
Some graffiti amounts to street art, takes hours to create, and is proudly shared on social media. More common, and more troublesome, are the tags, brief talent-free scribbles that take only a moment to apply. The main culprits are children, and it’s common for each member of a group of friends to have their own tags, which function as a badge of identity. The young age of the perpetrators makes it that much trickier to take action.
This comment on social media site Nextdoor summed it up well: “Have the council stopped dealing with graffiti? The graffiti in the park near the old boating lake has been there for as long as I can remember. The scrawling on the traffic signs in Upper Park Road are getting worse by the day… we as taxpayers have to pay for the removal of this rubbish.”
There is a widespread perception that the problem is getting worse. Actually, the number of reports of graffiti to My Hastings has fallen from 1153 in 2023 to 968 in 2024–though not every incident gets reported. To put the matter in perspective, the total number of reports to HBC’s cleanup team in 2024, covering fly tipping, dog mess and the rest, was in excess of 14,000. That is a lot for the 24 staff on the response unit. Head of Waste Services, Cameron Morley, said, “We used to contract the graffiti cleaning to an outside agency, we took it back in house in 2019, and the cleanup rate quadrupled.”
Recently a team of enthusiastic volunteers repainted the pillars in Bottle Alley, under the direction of Studio ZeroH. The fresh blank surfaces proved just too tempting, and within 24 hours the taggers had returned.
HBC’s Community Safety Officer, John Whittington, says, “It costs the council a lot of money, and certainly runs to tens of thousands of pounds. It’s not just the work, it’s the background admin. If the crew are clearing a council building, no problem, but if they have to clean a private property, they need a signed waiver first.”
Like litter and fly tipping, tagging and graffiti are a sign of disengagement, a lack of civic pride. If you tolerate it, it sends a signal that no one cares, and the whole social edifice of the town begins the long slide towards the swamp. If you stay on top of it, you can set the community on a different path.
Is CCTV a solution? There are simply not enough staff to check camera records, and in any case most taggers are smart enough to wear a hoodie and mask. Convictions are few, and of course a Community Protection Notice or Criminal Behaviour Order can be a badge of honour. In addition, some residents are queasy – and vocal – about the idea of cameras: civil liberties matter.
Tagging and graffiti are crimes – but it’s low-level, and most citizens would prefer the police to concentrate on thieves and violent criminals. There is one PCSO in Hastings whose special brief is graffiti. If you report an incident to the police, the matter will rise up their agenda.
The real answer is collective effort. Graffiti probably won’t be stopped altogether but Hastings residents can stay on top of the problem if they work together. The My Hastings website is constantly monitored, but the cleanup crews need input. There is no team of spotters reporting litter and graffiti: the council relies on the public’s eyes and willingness to call the problems in.
Report crimes anonymously on Crimestoppers, 0800 555111, or dial 101 to report non-emergency matters to the police. Contact My Hastings on my.hastings.gov.uk Cllr Tony Collins is a Green councillor for Central St Leonards.
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