Racist Graffiti

You might want to contact British Waterways about this aswell.

It's mid July and I am absolutely and utterly disgusted that the disgarded racist boat is still there opposite Leeds Dock, and has not been removed.

There was a multicultural music festival at the various wharfes last weekend on the 11th and 12th of July, and I caught a boat trip up and down the canal, and the passengers were sickened by the graffiti.

I contacted both British Waterways and Leeds City Council but both organisations have ignored my emails.

Both British Waterways and Leeds Council state that they have a 24 hour turnaround for racist graffiti, so why do they refuse to board the boat to either scrub away the graffiti or paint over it?

There was a mix of people at the festival, including Asian and Black people and international tourists, who will not visit Leeds again after what they saw.

I hope that both the Yorkshire Evening Post and BBC Look North investigate the story and shame both the council and British Waterways for refusing to take action against this blatently obvious racist graffifi.

Tourism to Leeds will suffer because of both organisations lack of concern about the issue.

Perhaps we should get together and do it ourselves!

When I was phoned a day or so after to be told that the barge would be towed by BW and the graffiti cleared by LCC with 24 hours. Obviously this hasn't happened. I'll give them a ring today to chase it up. This is pretty rubbish really.

-Sorry just seen that previous post makes no sense - the beginning should include the text 'when I first reported it..'

Hopefully a BBC Look North or a Calandar camera team will get down there tomorrow to film the boat, as somebody wasn't doing their job in removing the graffiti as promised, and British Waterways needs to be publically held responsible for its failure to uphold its 24 hour racist graffiti removal promise.

To update you all! - I've spoken to LCC and they have no record of the incident but suspect that after it was sent onto BW they closed their report file assuming that BW would handle it.

On contacting BW they told me they had heard from LCC about it today and their understanding was that the initial incident report had been sent to one of their disused mailboxes and so was never received. This left LCC thinking it was being dealt with and BW knowing nothing about it at all.

As of now BW have had someone paint over the racially offensive part of the graffiti so this is now not visible, so in a sense a result, just a shame it has taken so long. A failure of systems seemingly. I’ve attached a photo of barge as it is now.

(Mostly) fixed, I can live without it being towed.