Graffiti vandals could be forced to spend hours scrubbing their work off walls. Swindon councillor Justin Tomlinson wants the town to follow Bath's example, where instances of graffiti have plummeted thanks to a hardline approach.

One offender, a 19-year-old student, was recently fined £5,000 in a Bath court, and the city's police are pushing for graffiti cleaning to form part of non-custodial sentences.

Coun Tomlinson, lead member for Swindon Services, is seeking to set up a special group to look at how graffiti can be reduced in Swindon. And he is calling for a similarly tough approach.

"In the past Swindon has looked at banning the sales of aerosol sprays and providing facilities for graffiti spraying but they have always failed," he said.

A wall set aside in Mannington for young people to graffiti is said to have encouraged more illegal graffiti spraying, while banning paint sales caused problems for arts students, while vandals travelled to other towns to buy their aerosols.

"We have tried too hard to pacify them," said the Abbey Meads councillor.

"I refuse to call graffiti art. It is vandalism and they are vandals not artists."

Bath can boast considerable success in cracking down on paint sprayers.

When its anti-graffiti team started work last year it was receiving up to 120 calls of new examples of graffiti damage each month. Since February the number per month has dropped to just 10.

How Bath is clamping down

PC Darren Taylor of Bath police's anti-graffiti team, said: "We are tackling the problem with a hard line. We have put a number of offenders before the courts where they have received stiff penalties.

"If they don't get a custodial sentence they go through youth offending teams and we want them to clean up their damage."

He said instances of graffiti were historically dealt with one at a time, and offenders might receive up to 20 cautions.

By contrast, in Bath officers maintain extensive files of photos depicting graffiti damage. The tags, writing and art style are all collected so in the event of a sprayer being caught, officers may be able to use a portfolio of evidence of other offences.

Evening Advertiser 04/08/04