BW are ***kers, says county councillor Matthew Ellis

Writing’s still on wall for graffiti mess - Express & Star

Fury as Tamworth bridge graffiti ignored - Birmingham Mail

What does it take to remove graffiti from a canal bridge?  Is the problem in simply filling in the forms and raising the work party, and you can remove a whole bridgeful at once very quickly?  Or is there a lot of time and effort to wash and scrub and spray and paint?  

And what about the words used which might offend people and stirring the authorities into action?

A string of complaints about graffiti on a Staffordshire canal bridge led to all the offensive words being removed – but the remaining scrawl was left behind due to “budget constraints”, a move which has left the community enraged.

Staffordshire County Councillor Matthew Ellis has branded the move "bureaucracy gone mad". He said the Government-funded agency British Waterways had wasted taxpayers’ money by only removing selected parts of the graffiti from the bridge in Bonehill, Lichfield.

Councillor Ellis, who represents Lichfield Rural East, said: “Most of the **** of removing graffiti is getting a team on site to do it.

“To get there and spend time selecting which bits are offensive and then *****ing only those, leaving everything else, is  bureaucracy gone mad.  It’s completely ***kers.”

Is it as easy to clean a whole bridgeful of graffiti as it is to paint out one offending word?  Does British Waterways have a priority to remove all graffiti, over its priority to keep the waterways open?

I've hunted hard amongst my photos, but I can't find one of Bonehill Bridge, near Tamworth.  I must rectify that.  Does anyone else have  a vivid picture of it?

The Birmingham Mail story says Councillor ***** is looking to see if Lichfield Council can clean all the rest of the graffiti - not just the occasional word - and charge the cost to British Waterways.  Perhaps he thinks boaters did the spraying?

But what were the offending words?  The pictures stolen from the Express & Star (top) and Birmingham Mail (bottom) don't say.  But I note there's a four-letter F-word in the top picture.  Blame Gordon Ramsay.

To praise Councillor Ellis, he does set out his points in a blog - here.   And bravo, he allows you to comment.

Update: I've amended and rewritten this post substantially since the comments below (the most recent is Lesley of NB Caxton).

Comments

[John]

I totaly agree with Bruce.
We never see offenders doing community service and removing graffiti would be a useful task....or does hard work breach their human rights....as most things seem to do.....

[Carrie]

Lobbying councillors or politicians - yes that really works (for bugger all). Either do it yourself if it offends you (or your beliefs) or if you can't, get those that make nice fat profits from the canals to do it (BW).

[Adam]

Councillor Ellis may in theory allow comments, but in practice the comments system appears not to work.

[iain smith]

The expensive bit is probably the manager saying go clean it in the first place. i do agree with carrie as far as the stone age bit is concerned, and about all derogatory graffiti but some of it enhances the surroundings rather than detracts from it in Grey industrial areas it can often bring a splash of color,but if it is on the wall of your house it it is usually unacceptable.

[Will Chapman]

This is just the sort of attitude Save Our Waterways is trying to reverse.

It really is time that local councils took on the responsibility of cleaning up after the antisocial activities of their own residents. BW's statutory responsibility is to keep the navigation open not clean up after local residents.

I really hope that a lot of people will make this point to Tamworth council through the facility offered by the Express & Star. I have (though I think I got the Councillor's name wrong!) - if you do, you might also make the point that BW also pays to remove rubbish thrown into the canal. It seems that Tamworth is happy to take the trade that the canal brings but not to contribute to its well being.

Cheers

Will Chapman
Chair, Save Our Waterways

[Lesley K NB Caxton]

Andrew
I have just sent a link from your item to Matthew Ellis. It would be useful for this councillor to be aware of the boaters views on this issue. Perhaps he might find the budget to clear up, after his on constiuents.

[Bruce Napier]

But why should BW clean off the graffiti when it's the locals who put it there? BW should charge the council for doing it IMHO. Sounds like an ideal community service task to me.

It's like BW having to foot the bill for clearing out trolleys and so forth, rather than charging the supermarkets for not using one or other of the ways of reducing the number that get taken from the vicinity of the store.

[Carrie]

oh yes, I forgot to add... It IS a lot more work to clean a whole bridge than a few words. You have to apply a solvent first, leave it to act, then power-spray it off. Sometimes it takes more than one go. It's probably less environmentally damaging to cover it up :-)

[Carrie]

I don't remember if this was the particular bridge (Bonehill rings a bell), Andrew, but I contacted BW over two bridges that had swastickers, violent racist and anti-semitic graffiti. If I hadn't been travelling along, unable to moor up nearby, I would have sorted it out myself (with 'stone effect' spray paint). I'm really glad BW took some action. I don't personally give a toss about graffiti (lots of it looks just like stone-age wall paintings with the usual human obsessions!), but to accept racist graffiti and NOT take action is to condone it, I think.