Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Underpass makeover after £10k crowdfunder
A gallery of artwork featuring scenes of Canterbury has been created in a city underpass which has suffered from graffiti for years.
The transformation of the St Dunstan’s crossing subway has been the culmination of a near two-year project by the Canterbury Society. Although now reopened, it will be officially launched on Sunday with members of the society, councillors and supporters.
The society raised about £10,000 from a crowdfunding appeal, while a further £7,000 came from the city council, councillors, businesses and Canterbury Cathedral. The renovation of the underpass involved high-pressure cleaning of the whole underpass, painting the walls, lining the passage with artwork, renovating the hand rails and making everything graffiti-proof.
The pictures are by local art
ist Henry Cockburn.
His pictures feature scenes of city and a new work depicting Henry II at St Dunstan’s Church, doing penance for the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket. Photographs of his paintings now adorn the walls, sealed in plastic to make them vandal-proof.
Jan Pahl, from the society, said: “The underpass, which is used when the crossing gates are down by large numbers of people, including tourists - was in a frightful state. “We are very grateful for the huge support we have had, including the 100 or so people who donated to the crowdfunding, and are very pleased with the result.” Meanwhile, volunteers have removed almost 100 ugly tags elsewhere in the city in a blitz on graffiti at the weekend. On Sunday morning, a group of Wincheap residents turned out armed with cleaning equipment and materials to tackle the eyesores. The effort was organised by resident Paul Eason, and about 40 locations were identified for attention, including street signage and furniture which had been daubed. One of the volunteers, Dr Amanda Bates, says she thinks it is more than the city council has achieved in years. “We should not have to resort to giving our time to this,” she said.
“I am also very aware that residents have bought an array of cleaning products and protective equipment out of their own money. “Some of the graffiti cleaned this morning has been there for years - it’s an appalling state of affairs.
“Now I have another nine areas of graffiti to report to the council, in addition to 20-plus that another resident has sent to me. We will continue to record and report graffiti to the council and will monitor the situation closely.” Council spokesman Rob Davies thanked the volunteers for their efforts but said the authority had itself put an enormous amount of effort into cleaning graffiti in locations in the Wincheap area in recent weeks.
“We spend tens of thousands of pounds of council taxpayers’ cash every year cleaning up graffiti and trying to track down those responsible for this type of criminal damage.,” he said.
“We offer a £500 reward for information leading to the conviction of taggers and are about to launch a toolkit to help businesses and residents design out opportunities for their property to be vandalised.”
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