Brighton & Hove City Council has announced small businesses in the city will be no longer subject to a fine when they have failed to clean graffiti from their premises.
The decision to pause enforcement action against small businesses was made by the City Environment, South Downs and The Sea Committee in June when councillors agreed it was unfair to penalise victims of graffiti.
From 7 August, the council says its environmental enforcement team will write to small businesses advising them how to deal with and manage tagging offences.
Larger businesses, including those with a regional or national presence, and ‘statutory undertakers’ are still required to remove graffiti from their property or face a fine, the council says.
Statutory undertakers are organisations responsible for electricity, gas, water, telecoms and highways in the city such as Network Rail and BT.
The council says that Community Protection Warnings (CPW), Community Protection Notices (CPN) and Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) will be issued to encourage larger businesses to remove tagging.
The council is carrying out a review of the Graffiti Reduction Strategy, which it says focuses on four key areas – prevention, enforcement, removal and monitoring and reviewing.
Since the strategy was agreed in 2018, the council have introduced CPWs, CPNs and FPNs, expanded its enforcement team and organised joint patrols and worked closely with Sussex Police.
A proposal to the City Environment, South Downs and The Sea Committee in September will seek permission to start a consultation on refreshing the Graffiti Reduction Strategy.
If approved, the council will be keen to hear from residents and businesses how they think it can continue to improve tackling problem graffiti in the city.
Councillor Tim Rowkins, Chair of the City Environment, South Downs and The Sea Committee, said: “We’ll send letters asking small businesses to clean tags from their property and advising them how best to deter taggers in the future, but they won’t be threatened with a fine.
“It seemed unfair to penalise local small businesses who might already be struggling financially, when they were already the victims of vandalism.
“We believe that small business-owners will continue to be responsible and remove graffiti from their property in a timely manner.
“Keeping walls, shutters and shopfronts clear and clean deters offenders and we encourage all businesses across Brighton & Hove to help us in the battle against tagging offences.
“We know that businesses around the city will support our efforts to keep the city clean.”