Legal graffiti walls approved for Glasgow

Mural trails in the centre of Glasgow are set to be expanded to other parts of the city after the council agreed to look at new legal graffiti spaces.

A council meeting heard the fantastic murals in Glasgow such as St Enoch and Child and St Mungo make walking in the centre more enjoyable.

There is the potential for legal graffiti walls to be rolled out across council wards to give artists more spaces to work.

Legal walls will be looked at

A full Glasgow City Council meeting yesterday was told sometimes high quality street art is wiped away as the local authority attempts to rid the city of unsightly tags and offensive slogans.

It was agreed that the council is to look at a range of actions for rolling out legal walls, supporting street artists and growing the mural trails.

Green councillor Lana Reid-McConnell who brought forward the motion on the topic, said: “Street art and graffiti are powerful tools for social change.”

She said: “By enabling more street art around the city we can help inspire a future generation of artists while also bringing new life to forgotten or underused parts of the city.”

She said identifying legal public walls will reduce council spend on removing graffiti and pointed out Glasgow spent the most on blitzing graffiti out of 127 UK councils according to 2019 statistics.

"Wealth of talent" in the city

Speaking at the full council meeting, councillor Reid-McConnell referenced graffiti parks in Barcelona and Berlin as examples of what can be achieved.

Councillor Christy Mearns who seconded the motion said: “We spend a huge amount of money and effort responding to problem graffiti.”

The Green politician pointed out there is a “wealth of talent” in the city and there are “clearly positive things happening already.”

She said: “A walk around the city centre has been made much more enjoyable for many as a result of large scale murals commissioned by Glasgow City Council as part of the city centre mural trail. ”

She mentioned SWG3’s art work display, which has transformed the Railway Arches beside the Clydeside Expressway.

She said councillors receive daily complaints about graffiti and sometimes “quality art” is removed frustratingly a there is no assessment process in place.

Protecting 'quality art'

She said local area partnerships can play a role. Local area partnerships are committees, which deal with local ward issues and are attended by community councils, charities, police, councillors and others.

SNP councillor Ruairi Kelly added an amendment to the Green party motion, which was accepted. He said it is about finding the right “and safe spaces” for artists and encouraging talent.

Emphasising the need for secure graffiti spaces, he told full council there are cases where graffiti artists access dangerous places to express themselves.

Welcoming the prospect of impressive murals in Cardonald, Labour councillor Jim Kavanagh said: “We would welcome the beautiful murals in the city centre in the Cardonald ward. “

Councillor Reid-McConnell’s approved motion instructs a council executive to come up with a business case pilot programme to be rolled out through area partnerships to connect with artists and local third sector organisations in the 23 city wards.

It also asked for the council to look at working with housing associations and other stakeholders likely to have walls that could be used. The council is also requested to look at other actions including considering what public sites could be made available for street art and action to tackle problem graffiti and reduce clean up costs.

A report is to be presented to committee at a later date on the business case, engagement and actions.

Councillor Kelly’s amendment said the council should “continue engagement with the street art community to nurture the next generation of artists while developing a policy, which includes providing public legal walls and expanding existing mural trails to cover other parts of the city.”

It also said outreach should be improved with people who could benefit from street art to allow creative expression and discourage vandalism.

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