Van masterpiece
Reporter: Janice Barker
Date published: 13 September 2010
Hollins fire station’s training vehicle has been covered in graffiti by local youths — but the firefighters don’t mind a bit.
The young artists from Fitton Hill Youth Club were invited to spray paint road safety messages on the van which is used for training exercises. Now the messages are clear for all to see.
It was the idea of Watch Commander Tony Morgan who carried out a fire inspection at the youth club in Fir Tree Avenue, where he spotted examples of graffiti art.
He approached youth worker Liz Smith, and arranged for graffiti artist Sam Richardson, from Manchester, to get involved and show the group how to apply the paints and finish off the designs to a good standard.
Tony added: “We met with the group over several weeks to highlight the safe driving messages that would be suitable, looking into what are the main causes of road deaths.
“The group came up with the two ideas that highlighted drink driving and not paying attention whilst driving — playing with mobile phones, iPods, etc — as the key messages they wanted to get out. I think the end result has worked out brilliantly and the messages are clear and can be seen when passing Hollins fire station.
“The group that came are ages 13-18 and will be the future drivers in and around our community and hopefully we have raised their awareness about driving safely.”
