Hi-tech fight to keep tabs on graffiti vandal tags

The city introduced a graffiti action plan not only to scrub out existing daubings but to persuade youngsters to take more pride in their surroundings.

The main focus over the past six months has been the "tag" database, which allows council officers and police to upload data and photographic images of graffiti tags.

This means the routes of taggers can be identified and predicted. A historical evidence trail can be gathered that could lead to tougher fines or sentences.

More than 150 officers at Hull Council and Humberside Police have now been trained to use the database, on which more than 4,000 tags have been recorded since last November.

Andy Brown, the council's head of customer services, said residents were already noticing a difference.

He added: "Significant inroads are now starting to be made in tackling local graffiti."

Mr Brown said surveys were undertaken every month in each ward, with targets set for cleaning up individual communities.

"As of the end of February, only eight wards were not meeting this target. Since November 2009 over 14,000 incidents of graffiti have been removed across the city."

This does not include vandalism of council houses and local authority land. But Mr Brown said there was a price to be paid because the cleaning work was carried put by several outside contractors and cost the housing department 180,000-200,000.

He said cleaning up graffiti was expensive because it had to be either subcontracted out or held onto until there were several daubings within the same area to make removal cheaper.