Local offenders helped Sovereign’s neighbourhood wardens remove graffiti from various sites in West Berkshire recently.

Sovereign teamed up with West Berkshire Council and Thames Valley Probation Service to tackle dozens of dawbings in the Holybrook and Clay Hill areas.

In Newbury, the partners – as part of the council’s Cleaner Greener campaign – successfully removed graffiti from over 10 sites, both public and private property. And in Holybrook, thousands of pounds of criminal damage has been caused by graffiti vandals over the last couple of months.

Graffiti is an act of vandalism and is a criminal offence. Graffiti is really expensive and time consuming to remove and in the UK it costs over £1 billion a year.

This project will benefit the local community by improving their local environment and reducing the perception of anti social behaviour in these areas. If this blitz on graffiti proves successful it will be replicated in other graffiti effected areas of West Berkshire, as the Council and it partners strive to make West Berkshire a better place to live.

Andrew Mondaye, Scheme Manager, Thames Valley Probation Service, said: "Our partnership with West Berkshire Council has gone from strength to strength and has proved to be a really beneficial and cohesive working relationship between our organisations.

“The work that offenders have been undertaking in various areas of West Berkshire to remove graffiti under the supervision of probation staff has enabled them to make a genuine contribution to the community in a practical and ongoing way. I would envisage that our partnership with WBC will continue to expand and build on the very positive work that we have already completed on a regular basis since the initiative began well over a year ago"

Andrew Cooch, Neighbourhood Wardens Manager, Sovereign Housing Association, said: “The Neighbourhood Wardens have been working hard to tackle graffiti in Holybrook since the scheme started nearly three years ago. We have made a lot of progress to date, and I am looking forward to working in partnership with West Berkshire Council and the Probation Service to have a really big push to get on top of this problem which has been blighting our community for so long.”

Published 17 December 2007
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