Further to minute 24 of the meeting held on 10 November 2021, the Executive Director of Economic Growth and Neighbourhood Services submitted a report updating the Committee on the progress of the Street Art Advisory Panel and its next steps.

The report explained that the Street Art Advisory Panel had been set up in response to the growing interest in Street Art and an increase in its appearance after Banksy had visited the town in 2021.  The panel aimed to consider how street art and graffiti could be incorporated into the Reading’s public art offering and agree a process for defining street art as opposed to graffiti and had met three times to date.

The Panel had agreed the definition of street art as a non-permanent artform, generally created on surfaces in public places like exterior building walls, overpasses, bridges and junction boxes and had drawn up a process for identifying a piece as either street art or graffiti.  Street art did not have to involve painting: it could be done with stickers spread over surfaces or by methods such as yarn bombing, a process where artists covered things like trees and telephone poles with colourful fibres and crochet/knitting.  As a non-permanent artform it was not expected that it would be maintained except for under exceptional circumstance, for example, if a piece of street art had been commissioned as part of a project where it was intended that the piece was permanent, or if a piece was deemed a part of Reading’s social history or commentary and was therefore important to the town.  The panel had also defined graffiti based on the RBC Street Cleansing Policy where graffiti was defined as‘any picture, letter, sign or mark which has been painted, inscribed or affixed on a surface’. The Street Art Advisory Panel had set out examples of content or context that would prevent any item from being considered as street art. Where a piece was considered graffiti, the work would be addressed under the Council’s established graffiti policy.

The report explained that the initial membership of the advisory panel had been recruited and that it would continue to adapt as new key stakeholders were identified both within the community organisations (such as amenity societies and cultural groups) and the Council.  All ward councillors would be consulted on street art within their wards.

The report added that a trial of the process had been carried out in August 2022 using two existing pieces.  Officers would create a report based on the outcomes from the trial for distribution to the Street Art Advisory Panel, to ensure that it was an accurate summary of their recommendations. The report would then be passed on to key decision makers, in this case the Lead Councillors for Leisure and Culture, and Environmental Services and Community Safety, to inform their final decision.  Officers would also continue to work with Lead Councillors and the Street Art Advisory Panel on developing this process.

Resolved:

(1)        That the progress and next steps of the Street Art Advisory Panel be noted;

(2)        That the process for identifying when a piece was street art as opposed to graffiti be approved.