READER LETTER: Graffiti in our fine city is worse than ever

Oliver Chastney, of St George’s Street, Norwich, is concerned about the amount of graffiti in the city.  

Earlier today (January 20), I visited the Norwich City Council website to find the “Graffiti” page.

Sadly, this is a page which many Norwich residents and businesses have been compelled to visit regularly over the years and, in fairness to the council, the response for us has usually been commendable.

My hope that the scourge of graffiti would be curtailed by the current Covid-19 pandemic was over-optimistic.

Our much-loved city seems to be becoming utterly defaced like never before – private and public buildings, offices, shops, churches. It is everywhere around here and represents a major “clean-up” task for already overworked public employees.

Since the New Year, practically every wall in this historic area of Norwich has been defaced by a variety of “tags” and other graffiti and friends living elsewhere in the city confirm just how widespread it is in their areas too.

It is a huge expense to remedy at the worst time ever for the council, businesses and private householders who have to foot the bill. I wish I had an answer to this nagging blight, but I don’t.

The city council website mentions an £80 fine – and then, helpfully, offers a further page explaining what to do if you are unable to pay the fine!

A few Norwich residents have been mildly, and briefly, disturbed in recent months by late night student “raves” in earshot which seem to have attracted £10,000 fines for the organisers.

Unlike graffiti, such disturbances went away overnight and will not be there in the morning – on our doorsteps, in our streets and defacing our cityscape for months to come, and being added to daily, unchallenged, it seems.