Every Saturday, rain or shine, Patrick Lyons leads a work party of nine offenders through the streets of Christchurch. Armed with paint they attack graffiti, mainly in the eastern part of the city.
“We started around August last year,” says Graham Horne, Senior Community Work Supervisor at Pages Road Service Centre.
“Christchurch Area Manager Nick Scott was very keen to work with the council to remove graffiti. Despite the fact there are quite a few organisations that help fight graffiti in Christchurch, we are the first community work party to deal with this ever present problem in the region.”
Face-lift
Christchurch City Council Graffiti Team Leader Claire Milne says that after initial stumbling blocks all is going well.
Claire and Graham discuss which areas need attention. “We are very pleased with the way the project is going. This community work party has completed some great clean up work in certain eastern suburbs of Christchurch such as Linwood and Bromley.”
One particular instance that Claire is especially pleased with is the clean up of an old Caltex building. The photos on this page say it all.
“The graffiti just made the building look so messy. The whole area has experienced a face-lift after the work party came round and did such a fantastic job. We have received a lot of positive feedback from the public as well. We are very happy to have developed such a good relationship with Corrections and in time would like to take it to other Christchurch Service Centres.”
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Community Works is published quarterly by the Department of Corrections. Contact details for Community Probation & Psychological Services can be found here or by looking under C for Corrections in the Government listings of the Telecom White Pages.
ISSN 1178-1327