The council’s neighbourhood team, civil enforcement officers, and police worked in partnership to carry out a successful community resolution exercise, which saw a young individual help to paint over tagging at Town Centre East car park.
The young individual (who cannot be identified for legal reasons) was found by the police while carrying out the offence of criminal damage – Section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 and also admitted to other locations.
During the community resolution exercise, the young individual painted over a large section of offensive tagging done by other groups in the car park, saving the council and taxpayer close to £2,000 in costs to have this completed by a contractor.
Cllr Martin Horwood, cabinet member for customer and regulatory services, said: “While street art can be wonderful, criminal damage in the form of graffiti is not acceptable. Graffiti can have significant financial costs and negatively affect local communities.
“The council works constantly with other partners to reduce unwanted graffiti in Cheltenham, and I hope that this community resolution exercise has shown this young person the impact of their actions and that it will deter them from repeating such behaviour again in the future.”
Sergeant Steve Benbow, of Cheltenham Neighbourhood Policing Team, said: “We work closely with our partners to tackle criminal damage such as this.
“Restorative justice is one option we can use that, in some circumstances, can have a lasting positive impact on both victims and offenders.”
Sam Robinson, neighbourhood team supervisor, said: “This is a positive result of our joint effort with partners to tackle graffiti in our town. By engaging with the young individual, we offered them an opportunity to learn from a mistake and understand the impact their behaviour had.”