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New Murals Appearing at Chester’s SuperTrees Roundabout

New Murals Appearing at Chester’s SuperTrees Roundabout

The 'air' themed mural by David 'Doodleplanet' Settler, Sam Ryley described his work as "a very unique style, we just wanted him in there."

Three new subway murals are set to be unveiled at the Chester SuperTrees City Forest Garden beneath the Hoole Way roundabout by Meccabingo.

Previously, each of the three subway entrances to Chester’s eco-extravagant secret garden have been severely neglected, however, thanks to funding from local police Cheshire Constabulary and the ‘Safer Streets’ initiative, the team at Forest City Projects CIC are decorating the underpasses with three captivating murals by local artists.


The Chester SuperTrees project began in 2018 when the founder of ForEST (For Eco SuperTrees), Steve Hughes began raising money for the revitalisation of Hoole Way roundabout by running seven marathons in seven days across seven different countries. Since then, the ForEST group (now Forest City Projects CIC) have installed new paving across the site, lowered previously vision obstructing walls and flower beds but most notably, they have installed three 7.5-meter high ‘SuperTrees’ inspired by the verticle gardens of Singapore.


The latest project to commence at the site has been a collaborative effort between the Forest City Project CIC, the local council and artists: Wendy Connoly, Russell Kirk and David ‘Doodleplanet’ Settler. Sam Ryley, Director at Forest City Projects CIC and project manager of the subway mural project explained “The whole concept is about raising awareness, each mural shows an aspect of nature and its negative climate issues.” this is showcased through the murals’ three themes: earth, sea and air, each by different artists.


The community also had a lot of input into the design process of the murals, Sam Ryley explained “We did a lot of community consultations where the artists met different groups of the community for feedback, that was really important. We worked with local residents around the roundabout and for kids we ran sessions at StoryHouse.” At the site of the murals, art student Chelsea Jones describes them as “really attention-grabbing, the colours sort of draw you in because it’s not something you would expect to see down here and then you start thinking about the meaning behind it all.”


Due to the neglected physical state of the walls, the project also required a lot of preproduction; Sam Ryley said “to do this, its been a long, long time coming; we really had to sort out the surfaces,” he also explains “It's all done on aluminium panels, the aluminium can be infinitely recycled and we can bypass the surface issues.” This approach to mounting the murals calls back to the meaning behind the project itself, the Chester SuperTrees project is one that aims to bring back biodiversity and climate consciousness to an environment where that idea had long been lost while helping the community do their part in the fight against climate change in new and exciting ways.


The unveiling of the new murals will take place on Saturday the 2nd of April from 10am-12am at the City Forest Garden, Hoole Way roundabout site near Meccabingo. There will be cakes for sale, spring bulbs to plant, weeding to be done and an opportunity to meet and greet the artists themselves.


If you would like to volunteer or help the Forest City Projects team, you can contact them via email at forestcityprojects@gmail.com. For updates and upcoming events, follow Chester SuperTrees on Facebook at www.facebook.com/chestersupertrees and Twitter @ChesterSTrees.

(This article is the outline of a press release that was later edited and sent to news outlets and not credited to me. This version is purely my own work and I do not claim ownership of any other version.)

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