Hackney Council cleans up ahead of the Olympics

Hackney Council contractors 'cleaned' this Banksy artwork. Photo: © Hackney Citizen

Hackney’s streets are the cleanest they have ever been, according to the national anti-litter charity Keep Britain Tidy. It has been monitoring the borough for the past eight years taking account of litter, debris, graffiti and fly posting.

Welcoming the news, Hackney’s Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, Councillor Feryal Demirci said: “Officers work hard to ensure that areas are cleared as soon as they are located or are reported by members of the public, so I am pleased to see that these efforts are being reflected in the Keep Britain Tidy survey.”

The Keep Britain Tidy surveys show year on year improvement for Hackney Council, with its 2010/11 results the best yet.

But a few incidents in the recent past perhaps put the council’s achievements in a different light.

There was the case of the half-disappeared Banksy artwork on Stoke Newington Church Street in August 2009. The building on which the graffiti is painted is privately owned and the painting had been left untouched for eight years.

Hackney Council’s graffiti removal team was halfway through its work when the owner of the property appeared: Sophie Attrill said she was devastated when she saw the wall being painted. “ I looked out of the window and saw what they were doing, so I ran downstairs and told them to stop,” she said. The council team halted the work to reassess the situation.

The council’s 2011/12 budget shows that graffiti removal is set to become a growth area, with plans to employ four additional graffiti cleaning teams up to and during the London 2012 Olympics.

The loss of local landmarks, however, is a concern for residents and a near miss for Hackney Road’s rabbit mural in December 2010 sparked a review of the council’s graffiti removal policy.

In contrast, a recent Keep Britain Tidy campaign highlighted a simple message targeted at politicians and local authorities: that ‘graffiti is not art’, and promoted a zero tolerance approach.

Related: Hackney Council apologises for removing Godwin Lawson memorial