Croydon Council will spend £500,000 “blitzing” graffiti across the borough.

The decision comes almost two years after the council’s dedicated graffiti team was made redundant.

In a bid to save money, the cash-strapped council scrapped the team and said it would only remove offensive graffiti.

Mayor Jason Perry said he is now committed to cleaning up all graffiti in the borough, something that was an election pledge of his.

But he won’t be re-instating an in-house graffiti team.

Instead, the council will spend £500,000 this financial year getting existing highways contractor FM Conway to carry out the work.

A council report says it rejected the option of bringing the service in-house due to the “relatively high cost” and time it would take to recruit staff.

Mayor Perry said he thinks removing graffiti tackles the ‘broken window effect’ – the idea that if a broken window is left unattended it attracts more vandalism.

He said the council will be removing graffiti across the borough “blitzing” one area at a time. 

Mayor Perry said: “Graffiti has risen exponentially since the service was removed and we are not prepared to allow that anymore.

“In theory, the cost should be smaller going forward, we are looking at the potential of using CIL (Community Infrastructure Levy) money.

"At the moment it will be using our existing contract with Conway but I am quite keen that we use local businesses to do that work. That is going to take more time to draw that up.”

Councillor Cummings said the £500,000 is “new money” that is now built into the budget.

The council also plan on developing proposals for the introduction of a “chargeable anti-graffiti coating service along with advice on graffiti prevention” to reduce future costs of removing graffiti.

The proposals will be considered by Croydon’s cabinet next Wednesday (October 12).