Housing group in graffiti payback

Published 13 Jul 2010 15:00 0 Comments

GRAFFITI on garages in a residential area has been removed as part of a clean-up initiative.

The illegal scrawl, which was there for several years, was removed by Bracknell Forest Homes, the Community Payback Scheme and Thames Valley Police.

Garages owned by Bracknell Forest Homes, as well as privately owned garages and bricked areas, were cleaned of graffiti. The clean up included 28 garages and four large bricked areas.

Linda Wells, housing and community services director at Bracknell Forest Homes, said: "This historic graffiti was from before the housing transfer to Bracknell Forest Homes, so its removal will have a real impact on the appearance of these garage areas and we hope that residents will notice a real improvement.

"We are really pleased to be working in partnership, using a specialist contractor called Community Clean, Community Payback and Thames Valley Police, to achieve positive improvements in the estate environments."

The programme is ongoing and there are more scheduled events throughout the summer and autumn.

Regular monitoring by the housing association's Neighbourhood Estate Action Team (NEAT), as well as mobile CCTV, is being used to identify graffiti vandals.

Ian Boswell, safer communities manager at Bracknell Forest Council added: "Research has shown that it is sometimes lesser crimes such as graffiti that can have a negative impact upon the wider community because everyone becomes a victim. This graffiti clean up will have a major impact on the self confidence of the whole community."

Bracknell Forest Homes has become the first housing association to partner with disability specialist DisabledGo to provide detailed access information about its sheltered and extra support housing as well as its office.

The partnership means that residents will have highly detailed accessibility information published about buildings owned and managed by the housing association.

Features include information about parking facilities and hearing and visual accessibility information to help residents and visitors.

Caroline Titley, chief executive at Bracknell Forest Homes, said: "We are committed to providing the best possible information and services to our customers and we see the results of this project as an excellent way of empowering disabled people to make informed choices about the housing we offer and to access our services."

Information to each of the housing association's 11 sheltered schemes was collected by a DisabledGo surveyor.

Anna Borthwick, head of business development at DisabledGo, said: "We are thrilled that Bracknell Forest Homes commissioned this work, it offers disabled people greater choice and further enhances customer service. We very much hope that other housing associations will look at the pioneering work done by Bracknell Forest Homes and see the value it could offer their Association."

For more information visit www.bracknellforesthomes.org.uk or to provide information about graffiti offenders to NEAT call 0800 692 3000.

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