GLASGOW City Council has been revealed as the UK’s biggest spender on graffiti removal, according to figures collected from structural repair specialists.
In a Freedom of Information Request, the local authority was one of 381 UK councils to be asked how much money it spent on defacing graffiti scrawls in 2019.
The figures revealed the body spent a six-figure sum of £649,000 on deploying graffiti removal specialists to sites in Glasgow last year alone.
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The authority was recorded to have spent twice the amount of money than the next highest-spending UK council and over five times the amount than neighbouring North Lanarkshire – who spent £120,000 on defacing graffiti in 2019.
Although Glasgow City Council came in as the nation’s biggest spender within the investigation, the local authority could not provide how many recorded graffiti incidents had occurred in the area in 2019.
Graffiti includes painting, writing, soiling, marking and defacing property.
Damaging a property with graffiti in Scotland is considered as a criminal offence where culprits can face a maximum fine of £10,000 or a prison sentence of up to three months.
Glasgow Conservative leader, Thomas Kerr, told how email inbox is "overflowing" with complaints regarding graffiti in Glasgow.
He said: "My inbox is as overflowing as my constituents' bins with complaints about the cleanliness of our city and the prevalence of graffiti is just another example of how the physical infrastructure of our city is being allowed to decay under the SNP's watch.
"We are spending more than twice the amount of the next highest spending local authority and over five times the amount of neighbouring North Lanarkshire Council.
"The SNP need to get a grip of this situation and prove to Glasgow taxpayers that we are getting value for our money."
A Glasgow City Council spokeswoman said: "Removing unwanted, often offensive graffiti is a costly exercise and the perpetrators should be ashamed for making their fellow Glaswegians pay the price of their stupidity.
"Every pound the city has to spend clearing up after vandals could have been invested in something their community actually wants or needs.
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