Around £15,000 will be allocated from West Dunbartonshire Council’s reserves for the emergency removal of sectarian and anti-vax graffiti.
It comes following a recent spate of vandalism across West Dunbartonshire particularly at The Hub Community Education Centre in Clydebank, which is being used as a covid vaccination centre.
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A motion to allocate the money from the free reserves to the anti-social behaviour budget for emergency removal of the offensive slogans in the evenings and at weekends was agreed at the most recent full council meeting.
The motion, presented by Labour councillor John Mooney, read: “The council has a responsibility to remove such offensive graffiti as quickly as possible. We thank our Roads & Greenspace Team and Y-Sort-It for the removal the next day of the graffiti on The Hub.
“In order to facilitate speedy removal in future, the council agrees to allocate £15k from free reserves to the anti-social behaviour (ASB) budget for emergency removal of offensive graffiti in the evenings and at weekends. The council also agrees that these funds be used to cover the costs of any additional call-out charges.”
Despite the graffiti already being removed at The Hub there are growing concerns about the problem which elected members want to address quickly and efficiently.
Councillor Mooney said: “There has been a lot of graffiti recently. Most of it is sectarian but the anti-vax sentiment at The Hub is particularly worrying.
“I know the problem with sectarian graffiti has been flagged up before. The reason for the motion is because we don’t have the resources to deal with this and the anti social behaviour funding is fully allocated to my understanding.
“We need to remove graffiti of that sort immediately not just because it is unsightly but it is profoundly disturbing to people.
“As someone who has worked in this field professionally, I know that vaccines are the single most effective public health measure down the generations and down the centuries.
“We have to put a stop to this attitude that opinions are facts. We need a solution to stop this.”
Chairwoman SNP councillor Karen Conaghan agreed with the motion and said she “wholeheartedly” associated herself with the comments made by her Labour colleague.
She said: “There was another spate of graffiti vandalism with racial slurs sprayed on the Denny Tank Museum in Dumbarton which was quite upsetting for a number of people.
“In addition to that there were anti vaccination slogans sprayed in Bonhill. While this is removed very quickly by our teams there is definitely a need for provision over the weekends.”
