Thank You for Shaping the Future of the INSA Mural

A little over a week ago we opened a simple question to the town: what should happen next with the INSA mural on Victoria Road — restore the original, or invite INSA back to create something new? We didn’t expect the level of response we got.

134 of you voted. 73 left your email address. 36 took the time to write us a proper comment. For a consultation on a single piece of public art, run from a small independent platform, that is an extraordinary turnout — and more than that, it’s a signal.

It tells us something we already suspected but is lovely to see confirmed in the data: people in New Brighton care deeply about the art on their walls. Not as a nice-to-have, not as a backdrop — as part of the identity of the town.

The headline result

The community has come down clearly on one side:

That’s a strong mandate, but it’s not a landslide in the dismissive sense — a quarter of respondents want to see the original preserved, and their reasons are worth listening to just as carefully as the majority’s.

Who voted

•      111 respondents based in New Brighton — the people who live with the work every day

•      21 from elsewhere in Wirral

•      2 visitors from further afield

Among New Brighton residents the split was 70% new / 30% restore. Among wider Wirral respondents it was 86% new / 14% restore. Both groups lean the same way; the further you live from the mural, the more appetite there is for something fresh.

What you actually said

The comments were the best part. A few themes came through clearly.

Love for the mural, and the wider Open Air Gallery. Almost every comment — whichever way the person voted — opened with some version of “I love this piece” or “I love all the murals.” The existing INSA was repeatedly described as a “key piece,” “one of the first murals,” a “defining” work, “one of the most crucial pieces of street art in New Brighton.” One resident who lives in the building itself wrote in to say they’d like it kept exactly as it is. That matters.

Hunger for New Brighton stories. Many of those voting for a new piece asked for it to speak to the town itself — “the sea or history of New Brighton,” “a journey through the years… how Victoria Road looked 100 years ago to now,” the “uses of the building since it was built,” the Tower, the Fort, the seaside. The enthusiasm for something locally rooted was striking.

Trust in INSA. “With it being INSA doing the work, let’s see something fresh!” “Have a new mural by the same artist if possible, art should be fluid like life.” “Can you let INSA decide?” The artist’s reputation carries serious weight in this community, and people are excited at the idea of bringing him back.

A pragmatic minority. Those who voted to restore were, almost to a person, thoughtful rather than nostalgic. “Restore if a new one is expensive. Will love it whatever.” “Repair, keep — and maybe use the rest of the moneys to do somewhere else if possible.” “Whichever is financially feasible is the right answer.” These aren’t voices trying to stop change; they’re voices asking us to be careful stewards of money and of a work the town has grown to love.

Honest constructive feedback. A few people said the current piece isn’t their favourite — too busy, too loud, or that they preferred it before the black and white went on. One comment asked for better representation in the Open Air Gallery overall — specifically that a new piece featuring people shouldn’t default to “another man or imaginary / fae-like young woman.” We’ve heard that, and we’ll carry it forward.

What this means

We’ll be honest — we are very pleased. Not with the result of the vote specifically (we’d have respected either outcome), but with the fact that so many of you showed up.

A consultation with a 134-person sample size might look small on paper, but the engagement underneath it tells a bigger story. People are reading the blog. People are forming views about the Open Air Gallery. People are willing to leave their email, write a paragraph, share a memory of the Peter Pan painting that used to be there, offer to help with fundraising. That is a community that is genuinely invested in the public art programme — and in the work we do around it.

It matters because the Open Air Gallery isn’t run by a council or a big institution. It’s run by a small team, powered by goodwill, sponsorship, and a belief that a seaside town can be a serious cultural place. Every mural on those walls exists because someone cared enough to get it done. Confirmation that the town cares too is not a small thing.

An idea we’re excited about

Reading back through the responses, one comment in particular has shaped our thinking. A resident of the building itself — specifically the small annexe to the left of the main mural — wrote in to ask that the design remain. That matters. It’s one thing for the rest of us to have opinions about a wall; it’s another to live behind it.

And it’s given us an idea we think threads the needle beautifully.

The INSA piece isn’t really one mural — it’s two sections that sit alongside each other. The main wall is the big, colour-saturated figurative work everyone knows. The annexe to the left is a quieter, green-toned element. They’re visually linked, but they’re separable.

So here’s what we’re going to explore: keeping the annexe section as it is — the original INSA green — and commissioning a new piece from INSA on the main wall. A conversation between old and new, painted by the same hand, fifteen years apart.

If it works, it honours everything this consultation has told us. The 73% of you who wanted a new commission get one, on the wall that defines the building. The 27% who wanted the original preserved get an original INSA element kept on site, not painted over. The resident keeps the piece of the mural that’s actually on their home. And instead of a clean break from the old work, you’d have something more interesting — a layered site that tells the story of the Open Air Gallery growing up.

It’s an idea, not a promise. INSA may have his own view. Feasibility and cost still need to be worked through. But it feels right, and we wanted to share it with you while it’s fresh.

What happens next

•      We’ll be reaching out to INSA to discuss a new commission for the main wall, with reference to the themes that came through in your comments — New Brighton’s history, the sea, the landscape — and to talk through the two-part approach above.

•      We’ll speak directly with the resident of the annexe before anything is confirmed, to make sure the proposal sits well with them.

•      We’ll look at feasibility and cost in parallel — a meaningful slice of you asked us to be careful with that decision, and we intend to be.

•      We’ll keep you posted. If you left your email, you’ll hear from us first.

And if you didn’t get the chance to have your say this time, there’ll be plenty more. We’ve got more walls, more artists, and more ideas in the pipeline than we know what to do with — and every one of them is better for having you involved.

Thank you, truly, for caring about the walls of your town.

— The New Brighton Creative Futures team