from leedsunitedtrust.com
You may have read in our latest newsletter, or via the Trust Twitter account, that we have recently gained permission from the Highways Agency (and Leeds City Council) to paint a mural on the wall of the underpass beneath the M621 motorway, on Lowfields Road. This approval was gained after six months of negotiation, and a decisive intervention from Hilary Benn MP.
We don’t need to tell you what an iconic location this is, and how visible a landmark this will be when completed. We would like the final design to celebrate Leeds United as a unique football club, and for it to reflect our proud history, complement the upcoming centenary celebrations in 2019 and stand as a lasting legacy.
We have been working with Leeds-based organisation East Street Arts on this, who are experienced in public arts and have carried out many similar projects in and around Leeds. They are mostly Leeds fans and they are fully behind this project and share with us a desire to give the area more of a ‘Leeds United’ identity, to brighten up the location, and to enable Leeds United fans to share ‘ownership’ of it.
At the moment we are in the middle of a two-week period where interested artists can submit a design which they would like to be considered for the wall. Of course we would also like them to paint it.
East Street Arts are using a portal called ‘Curator Space’ to commission the project, the link is here and any interested artists are welcome to submit a design and a price to produce the mural.
Our aim is to have four or five mural designs ready for Trust members to vote on in a couple of weeks, and then a short period for voting on the final design. We will then have two weeks at the beginning of August to prepare the site (remove shrubbery and make the wall surface ‘clean’ and paintable) and get the mural finished in time for the first home game of the 2017/18 season v Preston North End on Saturday August 12th.
CROWDFUNDING
As time is extremely tight we need to start thinking about funding the project. Our budget is a maximum of £3,800 (similar sized murals have previously cost around £3,000 so we are hopeful the final cost will be less than our estimate), so we are reaching out to our membership (and anyone else who is supportive) to ask for donations towards the final cost.
Here is a link to our Just Giving page, which shows the running total of donations towards the final cost.
We feel this is a unique opportunity for Leeds United fans to have a physical imprint on Elland Road, to leave their mark on the matchday experience, and to contribute towards something that will hopefully last for generations to come.
Many thanks if you decide to contribute, we are extremely grateful for any donation, regardless of size, and we hope you will be very proud of the end result.