Whangarei will get a second team to tackle the city's graffiti problem, but tagging at one high-profile spot may have been stamped out thanks to a couple of metal plates.
Whangarei District Council has voted to put another $55,000 into its D'Tag graffiti removal programme to pay for another clean-up team
to stem the rising tide of tagging in the district.
D'Tag, which is run by Te Ora Hou, cleaned up 458 separate graffiti spots in the five weeks to May 25, compared with 245 in the previous three weeks.
However, one of the prized tagging spots - the railway bridge above the five-finger roundabout on Walton St, may now be off limits to graffiti artists.
Te Ora Hou worked with Ontrack, which controls the railway network, for a solution to tagging and came up with one they think will work - metal plates.
Ontrack has fixed the plates in the middle of the bridge, making it inaccessible to taggers.
So far it has proved successful, with no tagging reported since the plates were added - much to the delight of D'Tag.
The bridge was one of the most difficult areas in town to clean graffiti from as it meant Ontrack had to make sure no trains were travelling along along the railway during the clean-up and have a person on site to oversee the work.
The council is looking into other possible solutions to the graffiti problem and Cr Shelley Deeming suggested extending the Neighbourhood Watch scheme to include a specialist graffiti watch.
"That could be a possible solution at minimal cost to the council," Cr Deeming said.
Cafler Park, the Whangarei Bowling Club in Second Ave and the Tourist Information Centre in Tarewa Park are three of the worst hit places for graffiti in Whangarei.
