Wokingham

Budding Wokingham editors, filmmakers and reporters tackled the difficult issue of graffiti as young people from the Wokingham borough took part in a council project to raise awareness about the problem.

As part of Wokingham council’s liveability project, the waste and recycling team, community safety and children’s services teamed up with The Cultural Partnership and specialist media company RealTime to invite young people to join a project exploring the causes behind graffiti and the thoughts and views of local people.

Taking on the researching and writing for the video, the young people took to the streets of Wokingham borough to discover opinions on how and why graffiti blights our communities. They also carried out interviews with the borough council’s waste and recycling officers who are responsible for organising the clean-up of graffiti on the borough’s streets.

Waste and recycling manager Peter Baveystock said: “We are always looking for new ways to tackle the issue of graffiti and this video project was a new initiative for us. We set out to look at the causes of graffiti, to help us understand how we could prevent it. The project has also uncovered some new areas for the council to address such as graffiti being used as a tool of intimidation amongst young people.

“Working with children’s services, we will now use this video to open up discussion with young people in schools, as well as helping us in our efforts to tackle graffiti.”

The première of the short video will take place on Thursday June 7 at 6pm and the film will continue to run in The Mall Gallery at Wokingham council’s Shute End offices until June 15. The video will then be used as a discussion tool in schools and with community groups.

Executive member for environment Cllr Simon Weeks said: “This has been an innovative project for the waste and recycling team and, working with colleagues from teams across the council, we’ve taken a fresh look at a long-running issue.

“The resulting film will prove to be a useful tool for community groups and I look forward to taking part in the interesting discussions it will prompt.”

Wokingham Borough Council