Clough Street – a busy throughfare used by pedestrians between the main shopping and dining area in Stoke-on-Trent City Centre and Tesco Extra, is being transformed, thanks to colourful and vibrant murals that will engage passers-by.

As part of Stoke-on-Trent City Centre BID’s Operation Sparkle – an all-important project to considerably improve our city centre by working with partners and businesses to help clean up the trading environment - graffiti has been cleaned off buildings and replaced with eye catching artwork to improve the look and feel of the City Centre and help it to thrive post-lockdown.

BID Manager Richard Buxton hopes that the new art will increase interest in the area:

“With 87% of Hanley businesses in the BID area strongly agreeing that an improved look and feel should be prioritised for the city centre, Operation Sparkle is a real priority for us, and the BID’s business plan centres around many street art initiatives to bring this vision to reality. 

“The development on Clough Street is just one of the projects lined up by Stoke on Trent City Centre BID to not only provide a much more attractive trading environment, but also to showcase the talent we have here in the city.

“As it is located in such a busy walkway, we hope that visitors, as well as city centre employees and residents, enjoy the new artwork that they walk away with a fresh new perspective on Stoke-on-Trent City Centre.”

Stoke-on-Trent City Centre BID are working with We Are Culla, Piccadilly-based creative agency, and British artist TEAone to give the former Rockermans furniture store a face-lift. 
As the location was once a Goods depot for the LMSR (London, Midland Scottish Railway) and is one of a few original buildings that remains in the City Centre from over a century ago, TEAone, best known for his industrial style artwork with themes of transport, is paying homage to the little-known fact by creating a scene loosely connected to the city’s rich rail heritage across the front of the building.


Rob Fenton and Tom Edwards, co-owners of We Are Culla, think street art is an effective, innovative and modern way to enhance the streetscape:

“My main aim in all of the work I do is to help the city of Stoke-on-Trent grow and evolve, so it’s great that We are Culla's aims align with the BID's plans and we can work together to improve the look and feel of the area through new artwork, more of which is in the pipeline” Rob commented.

“Our city is a breeding ground for creativity and innovation and so it makes total sense to showcase this in a colourful and accessible way for all audiences to enjoy. We’re honoured to have TEAone on board – a key player in the street art world – to bring our combined vision with the BID to reality.” added Tom.

In addition, the unit closest to Tesco’s car park has been enhanced by local artist and wildlife photographer James Rogerson, who also was the artist behind the artwork on the Foundry Street door as part of the BID’s Our Front Door project in 2019.

The brickwork now proudly wears a cityscape scene in Spode blue which pays homage to Stoke-on-Trent’s wildlife and heritage, woven with James’ passion for both the city and nature.


“I have been photographing the wildlife around the city for some years and wanted to highlight the importance of Stoke-on-Trent’s green (and not so green) spaces” says James.

“They are often surprisingly rich in biodiversity, from kingfishers and otters along our waterways, to the peregrines that soar over the concrete cliffs of our City Centre. For my mural, I have run with a design that nods towards the pottery industry as many of the old industry sites are also some of the best wildlife spots we have in Stoke-on-Trent. 

"I hope that by reminding people of this, there will be a greater appreciation of what we have here and that hopefully we can do our best to make space for wildlife alongside future developments for all our benefit.”

More of James’ work can be found on his website: www.jr-wildlife.co.uk.

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