Camden Council’s West End Project team have appealed to a fast-moving mystery volunteer who has been covering up graffiti with a roller and black paint, to stop what they are doing and give the council’s own workers time to clean it off. So they are telling us…
The Fitzrovia Mural — newly restored at a cost of £70,000 — was daubed with graffiti within a week of Whitfield Gardens being opened in early November.
But before Veolia, the council’s official contractor, could give it a warm jet wash to remove the scrawl, someone went out with a roller and paint and clumsily covered up the graffiti as well as part of the mural in the process.
The West End Project’s WFH PR-minion made a plea for the person who was doing the council’s job for them to stop.
“We are aware that there is someone painting over graffiti in Whitfield Gardens. While well intentioned we would ask that person kindly to stop,” urged an email sent to residents.
“We have an anti graffiti coating on the mural and covering it with paint actually makes it harder to remove and could damage the mural.
“Additionally the Caffe Nero building owners have the exact paint to match the newly painted walls. We thank you for your understanding,” said the message on 23 December.
Let’s hope the anti-graffiti artist is on the West End Project’s mailing list, otherwise it’s going to be a forlorn hope.
Which is worse? The graffiti splattered on the mural? The anti-graffiti paint job? Or Camden being too slow off the mark to jet wash it in the first place?
The quaint telling-off of a person unknown may quash the rumour that it was one of the council’s own contractors that wielded the roller and paint tin.
One source close to the West End Project team told Fitzrovia News: “We hope it’s not one of our own contractors who did it!”.
Perhaps it was a worker who received an automated message from the “Clean Camden” app, which allows residents and other people bored of whatever Covid Tier they are in to use a smartphone to request the removal of stuff that shouldn’t be there, along with the dog poo and other shit that tends to build up in Camden’s public parks and everywhere else in the south of the borough?
It could be that the council do strongly suspect it is one of their own wandering around off-the-leash. So by spinning out an email blaming someone else, it is some daft PR trick to deflect the fault from themselves.
Does someone want to own up and put Camden’s West End Project team out of their torment?