The Keep Britain Tidy campaign have estimated that the cost of graffiti removal to local authorities at £27 million a year.  They also point out that over half of councils don't have a dedicated team to deal with graffiti.

I know that there's much more we could be doing on graffiti here in Lewisham, but the vast majority of the stuff I see around and about is on private property - businesses in particular seem to be very hard hit. 

If you add the tagging and scratching that goes on to public transport the cost must be at least double the amount that local councils are faced with.

Can I bring this to your attention? fficeffice" />

Not quite, but it looks like someone (James) is trying to convince the councillors of Greenwich West to give it a go.

I hope they think about it and I'm more than happy to give them any help I can.

Update: It looks like James is the same person who is also trying to get Nick Raynsford to take up blogging.  You never know, he might just do it.

This evening I'll be going to talk to the local police about crime and disorder in the area.  This is something that the police organise so that they can get to know community leaders and councillors and we both understand the priorities of the other.  It is something that seems to go in waves; for a while everyone turns up and seems to get something from the meetings, then it goes into decline or the police change their sector arrangements and the meetings go into suspension for a while.fficeffice" />

Anyway, the meetings are back and I'll be going along.  I've already agreed to ask about policing the ffice:smarttags" />Lethbridge and Heathside estates and see whether it would be possible to invite someone from the residents' association along to the next meeting.  I also know that there is some disquiet about the use of sirens, and what is assumed to be a police helicopter (although that seems to have taken a break) which I'll raise as well. 

I know that Judith Beehag, the Inspector for the area, wants to talk about whether to have two groups; one for Rushey Green and the town centre and another for Blackheath and Lee Green.  More work for the police (and some councillors) but it might make sense.

If you have any burning issues you'd like me to raise (and you live in the area - Blackheath, Lee Green, Rushey Green or Hither Green) then let know.  If I can't raise them this evening I'll promise to do so at a later date.

Adam over at One Man His Blog reflects positively on how the city of Barcelona cleans it's streets.  Readers will know that I've had a bit of friendly argy bargy with Matthew Huntbach about how clean Lewisham's streets are, but I'm always ready to learn from places that do better than we do.

As you may imagine street sweeping is not a highly paid position and it's been difficult to fill all the posts we need.  In fact, because of some investment we made in this year's budget, we are now able to have an open advert with the job centre recruiting street sweepers. 

To keep things going we use agency staff, which is pretty unsatisfactory as it means that managers spend more time inducting temporary staff than we'd like.  It's also not that good for the temporary staff - for example they are expected to provide their own steel capped boots while permanent staff have theirs provided for them.

I'm still pretty impressed by the work that our street sweepers do, but there's always room for improvement.