MARRICKVILLE Council is considering a street art policy where tags would be removed but some graffiti on private property could be protected.

A council-commissioned report titled "Graffiti/Street Art As A Cultural Asset" says that the council should "recognise the cultural significance of street art activity by a 'benign neglect' of major illegal graffiti/street art sites, leaving them alone as far as possible".

Tags and graffiti that damage council property, public art or legal street art should be removed.

Council should only consider removing graffiti from private property if the property owner complains.

"If the complaint is valid, removal has to be considered, but it must be weighed against other considerations, such as the cultural value of the piece," the report says.

The council last year partially removed a work by the famous stencil artist Banksy, whose work has sold for more than $US576,000.

"After that they wanted us to define a set of guidelines that could be used by rangers so they could decide what to do," said Ian Millis, who wrote the council report with Wendy Carlson.

The Deputy Mayor, Fiona Byrne, said she thought the report struck the right balance.

"With tagging, I agree the sooner it's removed the better because it's territory marking, it's not an artform in itself. But if there's a work on a property and the owners of the property haven't complained and it's not offensive, I think you have to have some tolerance."

Marrickville's Mayor, Sam Iskander, said he would not tolerate graffiti that vandalised property.

"But I would like to encourage talented people who want to do street art to contact the council and see which sites we have available for them to show their talents," he said.

Sunanda Creagh