A LITTER campaigner is vowing to keep up the fight to finish her street art mural after more fly-tipping and ‘mindless vandalism.’
Emma Aspinall said it was ‘soul-destroying’ to see fresh damage inflicted by vandals and fly-tippers at her public artwork project.
She is hoping to get a protective coating for the mural, which is dedicated to Coventry’s history and designed with the help of schoolchildren.
But her plans have now been scuppered after fresh graffiti and scrawl appeared on one of the designs days before the expensive coating was to be applied.
She is optimistic about completing the transformation of what she regards as one of the city’s dullest and dirtiest walkways.
This is despite several setbacks including another part of the wall being knocked down by a nearby business and suffering vandalism attacks on two occasions.
She and professional street artist, Dynamick, designed the 10-metre long mural featuring images from the city’s industrial history.
Emma is a community organiser and an official Keep Britain Tidy litter ambassador for Coventry.
She has been clearing up fly-tipping and rubbish in a walkway connecting Gosford Park Primary School and Humber Avenue, Spon End, near the city centre for several months.
She wants to discourage anyone else from dropping litter or leaving waste in the alley by creating the mural and making it more attractive.
But she now fears the publicity and the positive feedback about the project means it is more likely to be targeted by vandals.
Ms Aspinall said: “I am just not getting much luck am I?
“On April 6 I am doing a community clean up in the walkway again. The plan was for the artist to put protective coating on because of the better weather and it absorbing better. But now it has been written on – we are very disappointed.
“I was hoping that we would have it completed now because it is a lot of hard work doing the clean-up and doing the painting.
“Ultimately its for the community and everybody who lives there.
“So I would like the mural to be done and stay nice, and perhaps get some help from the companies nearby to let us do more murals.”
Once the mural is complete it will depict Coventry’s workers and their vital role in the car industry and the city’s post-war reconstruction.
The first design is a welder and the second will be a grinder – giving the wall the look of an assembly line.
The walkway is flanked on each side by industrial units and dull concrete walls which will act as the blank canvas.
A two-day workshop at the school enabled pupils to design their own street art stencils.
