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Council orders Banksy art removal | |
(41 minutes later) | |
An artwork by street artist Banksy in central London will be removed to send a message to graffiti artists in the city, a council has decided. | |
Westminster City Council has ordered a 22ft-high (7m) mural, entitled One Nation Under CCTV, to be removed from a building on Newman Street. | |
The artist's sketches have sold for thousands of pounds at auctions. | The artist's sketches have sold for thousands of pounds at auctions. |
But deputy leader of the council Robert Davis said keeping the mural would mean "condoning" graffiti. | |
The mural has the words "One Nation Under CCTV" stencilled above two painted people. | |
One appears to be a child in a red hooded top apparently painting the words, while a police officer holding a camera and a brown dog look on. | One appears to be a child in a red hooded top apparently painting the words, while a police officer holding a camera and a brown dog look on. |
The mural is painted on the wall of a building shared by Royal Mail and another business. | |
If you condone this then you condone graffiti all over London Westminster City councillor Robert Davis | |
The council said that once it was established who owned the painted wall, the artwork would be erased by the owner. | |
Mr Davis, who is also chairman of the council's planning sub committee, said: "I take the view that this is graffiti and if you condone this then what is the difference between this and all the other graffiti you see scrawled across the city? | Mr Davis, who is also chairman of the council's planning sub committee, said: "I take the view that this is graffiti and if you condone this then what is the difference between this and all the other graffiti you see scrawled across the city? |
"If you condone this then you condone graffiti all over London." | "If you condone this then you condone graffiti all over London." |
Banksy has created at least one other artwork in the borough, in an underpass in Marble Arch. | |
But that mural has not been removed as the whole area is being redeveloped, the council said. | But that mural has not been removed as the whole area is being redeveloped, the council said. |