The mayor of Maitland, Cr Peter Blackmore, said he would push for a share of $3 million from a proceeds of crime fund available to local government to clean up spray painting.

Councils can apply for a grant of between $50,000 and $150,000.

Cr Blackmore said the money could be used to pay for closed circuit television in known graffiti hot spots across the city, particularly the city centre, Rutherford shopping centre and Rutherford skatepark.

He said the council had met with the police about the possibility of closed circuit television.

“We’ve been investigating closed circuit TV for quite some time and some of these units are very, very detailed,” he said.

“The issue used to be that we needed to have closed circuit cameras that are able to identify the faces of people – some of the older technology was very grainy.

“The other question was who’s going to monitor the cameras?

“But with new technology, the footage can be available on laptop and therefore the police will be able to access it to look for any trouble.

“It is disappointing that [the cost] has been a little bit out of our reach, but now that these grants are available we’ll be putting our hands up.”

Councils can apply for grants to invest in measures to clean up graffiti, improve lighting and install CCTV in graffiti hot spots.

Funding is available for projects that run between 18 months and two years.

“Graffiti is vandalism – it’s as simple as that,” Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon said.

“It is wilful damage to public and private property and that’s a crime. This money will help local councils with great ideas to help clean it up and prevent it coming back.”

Applications close on March 16.

Maitland City Council also recently received $57,000 from the Attorney General and Justice Department’s Graffiti Hotspot Crime Prevention Grant project to target Rutherford Youth Space and Thornton Oval.

Opinion