By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A short and “strident” Casey Council campaign has successfully shamed a state authority to clean-up a heavily graffitied rail bridge in Narre Warren.
At a council meeting on 2 May, Casey mayor Sam Aziz declared that unleashing the “dogs of war” a fortnight ago had finally roused the State Government into cleaning up the railway overpass on Narre Warren-Cranbourne Road.
The council had recently received a letter confirming that rail asset authority VicTrack had engaged Metro Trains to clean up the tags by 8 May, Cr Aziz said.
“This is a great outcome for the residents of Narre Warren South and the residents of Casey as well.
“It’s a shame that we allow graffiti vandalism to fester to that extent.”
Casey councillors resolved to cease the council’s campaign to install signs at the overpass reading: “The ugly state of this railway overpass is the responsibility of the State Government.”
The council would consider reinstating the campaign “the next day” if the graffiti wasn’t cleaned by 8 May, Cr Aziz said.
The mayor said the overpass’ “disgusting state” could have been fixed in a “half-day job” but had been ignored by VicTrack despite several years of requests.
It was a gateway to the under-construction $125 million Bunjil Place, and could be seen by expected high-level visitors from China, which has a zero-tolerance graffiti policy, Cr Aziz said.
As part of the paused campaign, the signs were to instruct readers to call Casey-based state MPs Luke Donnellan, Judith Graley and Jude Perera to “get it fixed”.
The council would also issue a daily tweet on its Twitter account until the matter was resolved.
In the past, VicTrack had declined to clean the overpass walls because of the potential disruption to rail services and had refused Casey’s offered solutioin to lease the walls as advertising space.
A council report on 18 April stated VicTrack had declined due to its policy of not allowing “third party assets” affixed to its railway bridges.
