Aberdeen City Council has spent more than £500,000 on clearing up graffiti and chewing gum from the city’s streets over the last five years.
A Freedom of Information request revealed it had cost the local authority £480,572 to get rid of unsightly spray paint from the city’s buildings, and £56,360 to remove discarded gum from pavements and roads since 2011.
In contrast, Aberdeenshire Council, during the same period, spent just £28,762 to erase graffiti in the area’s various towns and communities.
North-east MSP Lewis Macdonald said the enormous volumes of money the council was forced to use to clean public spaces was money that was being deprived from important causes.
Mr Macdonald added: “These are very big numbers, but we must remember the city has had a significant number of graffiti attacks in the last five years, and many of these will have inflated these costs.
“It’s a very significant amount of money to be spent that the council could instead use elsewhere to help fund things like schools, parks, and education.
“Unfortunately this is the very real cost to society when people decide to litter and commit acts of vandalism such as graffiti.”
Dominic Fairley, chairman of the Aberdeen Civic Society, said: “It’s a dreadful shame the council has to spend this kind of money to keep our city clean.
“It does seem like quite a lot of money, but I’m glad that the council is spending it, because it would be a great shame to see our buildings defaced with graffiti.”
A spokeswoman for Aberdeen City Council said: “We are committed to keeping our city clean, so it is disappointing that we have had to spend more than £500,000 cleaning up graffiti and gum in the city.
“We work with a number of agencies and community organisations as part of the Clean Up Aberdeen Campaign.
“Our public spaces are for everyone to enjoy, and so we are striving to influence residents to change habits and join forces to keep our communities free of graffiti.”
