A CLEANER has removed graffiti from a city street which was targeted in a 'tagging' spree.

Craig Ellis, who owns Fusion Cleaning Industrial Services, wiped away most of the graffiti in St Oswald's Road, Worcester, today (August 10).

A vandal sprayed the tag 'FBS' onto surfaces across the city in early July, targeting the walls of a retirement home and a church car park.

Mr Ellis, aged 32, of Gorse Hill Road, Worcester, said: "The people that did this don't think about the area they live in.

"Worcester's a beautiful place and they are spoiling it. I've lived here all my life, me and my wife go through this street regularly.

"This is a busy road and it doesn't look good for visitors."

Mr Ellis said he decided to offer his services for free after reading the Worcester News story about the spree on Facebook.

He previously carried out sample tests to see how the chemicals reacted with the surfaces and then started cleaning the graffiti yesterday.

"There's about eight tags, all 'FBS'. I hope to clean six or seven of the tags today," he said.

Cllr Joy Squires, who represents Arboretum ward on Worcester City Council, said: "It's brilliant that he's volunteered to do this, it's very public-spirited of him.

"The effort having to go into this is phenomenal, whereas the original graffiti would have taken seconds.

"He's losing a day's work and using his own materials. Local residents will be grateful for his hard work.

"Residents are frustrated as there's nothing attractive about it [the graffiti], it's just vandalism.

"People are just annoyed that an individual feels they can do that to the local area."

Cllr Squires said the city council has an arrangement with the Duckworth Trust to remove graffiti in public spaces.

"But they can't do this sort of work, someone needs to pay for it. The city council doesn't have the resources," she said.

She added that there are a huge number of hoops to jump through before graffiti can be cleaned off private property.

One of these conditions is assessing how the cleaning materials will affect the surface.