Two murals being painted in the community of Torry

16 July 2018

Two new murals are to brighten up walls in the city community of Torry – with help from the local community.

The artwork at a community garden was getting painted by the Torry Squad today and the same group is working on the mural at a new skatepark tomorrow. A professional artist will also be at both sites to pull the group’s work together.

Aberdeen City Council Co-Leader Councillor Jenny Laing said: “The mural looks fantastic and you can see the amount of hard work put into it by local young people, and members of the community.

“Along with the mural being completed at the community garden, they both look brilliant and I hope residents in Torry will enjoy looking at the artwork, which also complements the work being carried out by VictoriArt in the area.”

The mural at the Tullos Community Garden is designed to complement the growing space which started from a Participatory Budgeting process in January 2017 with the City Council working with the local community to gather ideas and develop a plan to improve a local unused overgrown greenspace in the Tullos area of Torry.

A total of £30,000 was made available from ACC’s Housing Revenue Account fund for the greenspace improvements and it was opened in May this year, and about 15 local groups and organisations have worked in partnership to make the garden a unique interactive community space for Torry.

More than 360 volunteer hours have already been completed in the garden, and a community group is running an exciting summer programme of activities.

Torry skatepark at St Fittick’s Park opened in May however it was vandalised by graffiti, and it is hoped the new mural, which was designed by local young people, will help prevent the same thing happening again.

The renovation to Torry skate park involved £50,000 funding awarded to the community through SUEZ community trust.

The £71,000 project was boosted by a £50,000 award from the SUEZ Community Trust, which enabled the expansion of the existing skate park to include 10 features for users of all abilities.

The Council’s communities team in Torry consulted with local young people prior to the work being undertaken to ensure the plans met with their needs. Sean-Paul Gordon, a talented young skater who was instrumental in shaping the design of the features, was one of those to join this week’s session.

The skate park will be put to good use over the school summer break as a venue for Extreme Summer, featuring sessions from 6pm-8pm each Monday hosted by Transition Extreme.

PICTURE CAPTION:

Co-leader Cllr Jenny Laing at the brightly-painted mural at Tullos Community Garden along with Rebecca Cuthbert, 14, and David Lastowski, 8

The other pix are of the mural at the skate park.