![[NB] Creative Futures CIC](http://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68c276df7928f778938222f2/98488c41-8030-41a8-b1b4-ee4c899d7119/NBCF+BRAND+MASTER+copy-16.png?format=1500w)
A Clear Coat for Captain Mike
How we protected the Captain Mike Lowe mural for the stormy season ahead, and the partners who helped us do it properly.
The Mersey tests everything that faces it. Salt on the wind. Sun bouncing off the water and bleaching whatever it touches. And every now and then, a spray can in the wrong hands.
This week, Captain Mike got his armour.
On a bright, blustery afternoon at The Master Mariner, in the Victoria Quarter, we applied an anti-graffiti and UV protection coating to the Captain Mike Lowe mural by BREZAUX. It is nearly a year since we unveiled him in November 2025. He was our first commission as New Brighton Creative Futures, and the first of our Local Heroes. Since then he has had a full year of Wirral weather: sun, gales, salt spray, the lot. A few areas had started to fade, so before anything went on, Adam went back up and touched them in. Then we sealed the whole piece.
Our mission comes down to three words. Protect. Preserve. Commission. Commissioning is the part people see: the scaffold, the unveiling, the photos. Protecting and preserving is the quieter work that comes after, and it matters just as much. A mural that fades or gets tagged over within a couple of years is a mural we have let down, along with the artist who painted it, the funders who paid for it and the town that took it to heart.
What went on the wall
The coating is easy-on Anti-Graffiti Protective Clear Glaze, made by Urban Hygiene in Doncaster. They have been in the business for more than twenty years, and their clear glaze has protected thousands of public sculptures for projects like Wild in Art and the Elephant Parade. These days they are as well known for protecting street art and commissioned murals as they are for removing graffiti.
It is a two-part system. A resin and a cure are mixed on site, then rolled on by hand, and it sets to a tough, clear gloss. The important thing is what kind of coating it is. Some anti-graffiti products are sacrificial: they wash away with the graffiti and have to be reapplied every time the wall is cleaned. This one is permanent. It stays put. Paint sprayed onto it sits on the surface instead of soaking into the mural, and it can be lifted off with mild removers, again and again, without touching the artwork underneath.
It is rated for up to 20 years. It is low VOC, it is built to resist UV and weather so the colours hold, and the gloss finish gives Captain Mike's uniform a depth it did not have before. Go and look at the blues. You will see what we mean.
We will be honest, because we always are. No coating makes a wall invisible to someone determined to spoil it. What it changes is the outcome. A clean instead of a repaint. Hours instead of weeks. An artwork that survives a bad night.
The people who know this stuff
We did not do this alone, and we would not want to.
For more than a year now, We The Seeds and The Anti-Graffiti Co have been advising us on how to look after the murals in the OpenAIR Gallery. We The Seeds is a creative agency working in public art and placemaking, with its roots in printmaking and illustration, and it runs a dedicated anti-graffiti and mural protection installation service. The Anti-Graffiti Co are Urban Hygiene Trusted Applicators, specialists in protecting mural artwork from vandalism. Together they have been consultants, sounding boards and hands-on support. On Captain Mike they helped us choose the right product for a textured render wall, talked us through preparation and method, and supported the application itself.
That is how we like to work. We are a small CIC. We do not pretend to know everything, and we do not have to. Partnership is the whole model. Artists bring the vision, specialists bring the know-how, funders and councils bring the backing, and the community brings the reason for doing any of it. Working with trusted suppliers is how we keep the highest standards for New Brighton's murals, and We The Seeds and The Anti-Graffiti Co have raised our game.
A special mention too for our volunteer Ibrahim, who gave up his own time to help protect Captain Mike, and for BREZAUX, who came back to his own wall to make sure it looked its best before the seal went on.
The backing behind it
None of this happens without funding, and we want to say thank you properly.
Captain Mike exists because of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, through Wirral Council and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. UKSPF helped fund the original commission, and additional UKSPF funding has now paid for this protection work, so the investment made last year keeps paying back for years to come. Our thanks to the Regeneration and Place team at Wirral Council for their support, and to everyone who helped bring Captain Mike to life in the first place: Cammell Laird, The Guide Liverpool, The Floating Grace, and every person who put money in the pot. Thanks as well to The Master Mariner for giving him a wall to call home.
We also want to thank Visit Wirral for their continued support. A mural is never only a mural. It is a reason to get off the train, park up, walk a little further and stay a little longer. People come to see the OpenAIR Gallery, and while they are here they walk the promenade, go down to the beach and the Marine Lake, look out at Fort Perch Rock, and fill the bars, restaurants and cafés of the Victoria Quarter and beyond. Every protected mural is a lasting asset for our local businesses and for the visitor economy that keeps this town moving. Looking after the art is looking after New Brighton.
What comes next
Captain Mike Mural turns one in November, and he will celebrate looking better than ever. But he is one wall among of over forty. The job now is to take what we have learned here and apply it across the collection, piece by piece, with the same care and the same partners, so that the OpenAIR Gallery is still something to be proud of in twenty years' time.
We salute you, Captain Mike. And thank you to everyone in New Brighton, and to all our sponsors and partners, who make this possible.
New Brighton Creative Futures CIC
