Fury as iconic mural to Milton Keynes legend Leah Williamson is painted over

Residents in Newport Pagnell are furious that part of the town’s famous Leah Williamson mural has been completely whitewashed.

The striking portrait of the footballer was painted last August on the walls of a garage at the corner of Station Road and Cross Street.

Leah, who grew up in Newport, had just steered her team to fame in the Women’s UEFA championships and the town was bursting with pride.

The mural was the inspiration of Justin Dealey, a presenter on Three Counties Radio. He commissioned specialist artists MrMeaner, Arkade and Gnasher from street art company MurWalls and they volunteered their time to spend eight hours completing the masterpiece.

One wall shows Leah in action next to the words ‘She’s one of our own’ while the other, on Cross Street, shows the footballer’s face painted over the image of a lioness to represent the England team.

Over the months, the wall has been admired by thousands of passers-by and has never been vandalised or graffitied.

However, over the weekend, the giant image of Leah and the lioness has been completed whitewashed out by a mystery painter.

"The whole wall has been painted white. It must have been a deliberate and time-consuming job and why have no idea why anyone would want to do this to such a beautiful piece of artwork,” said one Newportonian.

Other residents, also fuming, are now thinking of organised a fundraiser to get the artists back to re-do the mural.

The walls are on a building belonging to Farm Garages, who are equally annoyed at the whitewash.

"We had no idea someone was going to paint over the mural and we are not at all happy about it,” said a spokesman, who has denied rumours that the buildings are soon to be demolished.

“We know Leah and her family and we were very happy to have her mural on our walls,” he said.

But he revealed the garage had been approached a couple of weeks ago by a Newport Pagnell resident asking if she could “tidy up” the part of the wall that was not covered by the lioness picture.

"The mural took up part of the wall and the rest had been left painted black for local artists to fill in later. I had a call from a lady who said she was selling her house nearby and thought the black bit of the wall looked a bit patchy, so could put buyers off,” he said.

"She asked me if she could paint it white to tidy it up. I said that was okay. But I certainly never expected that the actual mural would be painted over in white too… I would never, ever have agreed to that.”

The Citizen has messaged the house vendor through her estate agents, invited her to comment. So far there has been no response.

Meanwhile, another resident said: “The number of people who are disgusted by whitewash is overwhelming… Such a beautiful piece of art significant to Leah Williamson and historic to the local community has been wiped away.”