BALLARAT City Council has begun a $20,000 push to use real art to fight the city’s growing graffiti scourge. Twenty signal boxes will be given a new coat of paint to discourage graffiti vandals from defacing public property.People and communities councillor Des Hudson said the project had been successful in Brisbane and was endorsed locally as a way to tackle Ballarat’s graffiti problem.“Brisbane found by providing art over that surface, it actually reduced the level of graffiti significantly,” he said.“Of the boxes not painted, the graffiti rate was somewhere around 85 per cent, while for those treated with an artwork, the graffiti rate was around 15 per cent.”Yesterday, six children from Lumen Christi Primary School joined “Ratartat” artist Geoff Bonney to paint the first of the signal boxes. Cr Hudson said although the project focused on signal boxes now, there was scope to expand it.“We got a grant … to look at a local issue in the area, so we targeted graffiti — being a particular issue at the moment,” he said.“Ten of the signal boxes will be completed by professional artists and for the other 10, a professional artist will mentor a community group to paint them.”For more information, call the City of Ballarat on 5320 5500.Follow @JordanHOliver