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By banning fans from placing tributes on designated walls local authorities can create problems elsewhere
Councils must be sensible when it comes to graffiti
SIMON WHITE, DIRECTOR, LONDON’S CHARTERED SURVEYORS
Last week I found myself walking along Logan Place in London’s Earls Court area.
This is an unremarkable street except for the fact that at one end there is a large house behind a high garden wall where the late, great Freddie Mercury once lived.
Over the years the place has become a shrine to fans of Queen and the garden wall has developed into an epitaph where they write tributes to the man and his music.
The wall has become something of a place of local interest - until now that is.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has taken the view that these tributes represent graffiti and has removed them by taking the wall back to the bare brickwork. What’s more, it has sprayed it with silicone, preventing any further tributes being written.
Of course, being a property man I am as appalled as anyone to see buildings defaced, as this is vandalism by any other name. But I think that what the council has done here is a shame and a bit party pooper-ish.
At least by allowing people to scrawl their tributes on one wall it centralised the problem.
As they can’t now do this graffiti is appearing on other buildings nearby. The council didn’t think this through.
Camden has taken a different view and the wall outside Abbey Road Studios (pictured) is always full of tributes to the Fab Four.
True, it is also constantly being cleaned but it’s always left white and now exists solely for the purpose of being written on.
This could be the solution for inner cities that have a graffiti problem - give people somewhere to do it and let them get on with it.
But one problem with graffiti on buildings is that it’s now seen as an art form. Last bank holiday I went to Hollycombe Steam Park in Hampshire which features the UK’s biggest train set. Sad, I know.
It has bridges, little pubs, plastic cows and rows of miniature houses. You’ve guessed it, one tiny end wall to a house had been made with graffiti on it, thus legitimising it for every budding Banksy there.
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