Blogging’s been light of late, sorry about that. This has come in from the good people at The People’s Republic Of Stokes Croft though, and potentially has repercussions for graf all over the city.
In short, a production by Cheo and 3Dom, both obviously having recently painted the walls of the RWA, has been painted out by the council without permission.
Here’s the backstory to the photos below from PRSC.
The work was done with the express permission of the property owner, and the council were made aware of this on Friday, yet on Monday the piece was painted over. PRSC has been working to promote Stokes Croft as an outdoor gallery. Whilst Bristol City Council has been making noises about wanting to work with the community, their behavior seems to be negative, antagonistic, and certainly unacceptable…This kind of behavior has been going on for over two years now.
Here’s what it was before the council got to it…
…here’s how the council used our money to ‘improve the streetscene for the community’…
…and here’s the reaction of PRSC.
So, if you want to register a complaint about the council painting over work that a building owner had apparently given permission for, then PRSC would like you to email the council’s chief exec – jan.ormondroyd@bristol.gov.uk.
Given there’s about to be council elections in a few weeks time, it might be worth emailing councillors about this too. This part of this fair city falls under the responsibility of Cllrs Alex Woodman and Mark Wright. The latter is currently seeking re-election.
The thing is, if the council can paint out work on private property when the property owner has given permission for the original work to be done, then nothing’s safe is it. They’ve said before that these things are done as accidents, but whether they are or not, they can’t keep on happening.
Criminal damage by the Council. Let’s see them in court.
For fuck’s sake. That’s a damn shame. The council need to pay them back for the paint they ruined.
Proper poor form on the council’s part.
I’m down in Bristol Thursday/Friday, so would have got to have a look at that piece if it wasn’t for their vandalism.
Idiots!
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This is outrageous under what powers can the council do this on private property
How weird is that? I cant get my head around the councils point of view here at all. I hope to god this doesnt start happening in Stokes Croft, there will be a fucking riot…
So?
thats not on, they could clearly see it was a piece and not tagging or done illegaly.
Should we be reading something bigger into the fact that the council have painted out the word ‘hope’ in Stokes Croft?
will the council please come and paint the front of my property? it is looking a proper fucking mess at the minute. If not could someone please bomb it to fuck…then hopefully the council will do my long need and much anticipated spruce up.
many thanks
one of the property class
xxx
A cracking piece by the boys ‘destroyed’! Looks like council are up for the summer of spoiling!!
If its private property what gave them the right?
The gauntlet is down!
It seems BCC’s official line on graffiti removal is so blurred and confused due to the ‘Exceptions’ they made. That they clearly have no idea or rationale on how to police it.
Reclaim the streets.
I emailed Jan to see what was going on, below is the mail and response (my name isn’t really growler btw)
Hello
I’m sure you’re getting a few abusive mails about the way the council
have acted by “cleaing” a mural which was done with the express
permission of the owner.
I’ve only one question, why did this happen?
I’m not expecting an answer as i’m sure your busy (but one would be
nice), but do you think that it look better painted black than having
something decent on the walls in a part of bristol that’s not known for
it’s beauty?
Regards
Growler
Bristol resident.
Growler
Thank you for you email. I think most of us would agree that an attractive view is preferable to a black wall. I was unaware the this issue until this afternoon and at this moment can’t comment about the background but I am looking into it.
Kind Regards
Jan Ormondroyd
So hopefully something will happen in respect to having a consistent policy, but we’ll have wait and see…
Props to her for the fast response then, interesting to see what the final outcome is.
I was just wondering how people knew it was the council that painted over it? It seems abit bizarre when there is a peice next to it, which has been there for a while, yet has not been painted over.
Crap black paint, poorly applied. It could have been crap grey paint, but it’s still textbook council.
Because they admitted to it.
BTW… I saw this link on the PRSC site and thought I’d post it here. If you missed, this guy got some photos of the graf before the council caned it and made a pretty good poster.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/demosthien/3534825604/
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