Westminster Council to remove 'Banksy' art

Published: 5th May, 2011
by PAVAN AMARA

IT’S stirring up a storm in council offices, it has bewildered the staff next door, and it’s a surefire draw for the small crowds of tourists looking for a photo opportunity.

Street artist Banksy’s latest creation is now the subject of an international petition, started by Bloomsbury Labour councillor Adam Harrison, in opposition to Westminster Council’s “no graffiti” policy which has put the stencilled piece at risk.

Banksy fans this week launched an online petition pleading with council chiefs to save the design left on the corner of Clipstone Street and Cleveland Street: a rat and the slogan “if graffiti changed anything, it would be illegal”.

Cllr Harrison said: “I can understand why the council have a no graffiti rule but the art of generations has been preserved in museums and galleries, so why not preserve the art of our generation?

“This is a different art form, but it is the very definition of art when people from all over the world are coming to view it, and his work is selling for extortionate amounts.”

The wall is just over the Westminster borough boundary in Fitzrovia and is owned by the council. It also forms the entrance to the Network Advertising Agency. 

The agency’s manager Gary Chaprionere, 35, said: “A week earlier we’d all been in our local pub The Tower Tavern chatting about how boring the wall looked. We’d already decided that we, the staff, were going to paint it up and we even had a few ideas that we’d drawn on to posters, to paint up the next month. 

“One of my colleagues said, ‘Oh I wish Banksy would do something on that wall for us’, and we all had a laugh about it. 

“Two weeks later, we come into work on a Monday morning, and there’s a Banksy on the wall.”

A Westminster Council spokesman said: “Officers have inspected the graffiti and, as it is on property owned by the council, it will be removed. 

“While some people in the community may like graffiti, there are others that rightly consider it a blight on the neighbourhoods. 

“As a council, we can’t on the one hand crackdown on someone daubing a wall with a spray can, while letting famous names get away with it.”