Planning chiefs want JFK mural restored

May 9 2008 By Neil Elkes

FURIOUS city planning chiefs want Birmingham’s historic Kennedy mural fully restored to its former glory in a new £150 million Digbeth Irish Quarter development.

The planning committee has slammed developer Connaught Square over it plan to set pieces of the mosaic, including the face of President Kennedy, in benches.

Key parts of the mural were removed two years ago from St Chad’s Circus underpass and put in storage when the roundabout was demolished - with a promise it would be restored in Digbeth.

Committee member Mike Sharpe (Lab, Tyburn) said: "They say it is too big to fit into the new Irish Quarter.

"It is part of our history. The people of Birmingham, especially the Irish community, paid for it.

"It should go back as it was first designed, as a mural on a wall. Not for someone to sit on."

The committee gave its full and enthusiastic backing and will demand the developer take action, either informally or through planning conditions.

Created by artist Kenneth Budd in 1968 the mural, on a curved sweeping wall, showed the American President John F Kennedy bringing a crowd of diverse people together.

And when the underpass was scheduled for demolition his son Oliver Budd was given the task of preserving key parts of the mural for restoration in the Irish Quarter.

At the time the council announced the mural would need to be redesigned as a ’facsimile’ of the original but gave no indication that the faces would be separated and set in benches.