Blue Carpet fades to grey

The carpet was dogged by increaing costs and delays

A council which paid £1.4m for a huge pedestrian artwork dubbed the Blue Carpet, has admitted it is actually grey.

The Blue Carpet, outside Newcastle's Laing Art Gallery, comprises 22,000 tiny glass tiles.

But Newcastle City Council's head of arts and culture has admitted it should not have been labeled 'blue'.

Celebrating an environmental award for the artwork, Paul Rubenstein said he accepted criticism that the Blue Carpet was not really blue.

I'm not going to say we haven't learnt lessons from this, we have

Paul Rubenstein, Newcastle City Council

The Blue Carpet was unveiled earlier this year after spiraling costs and construction delays.

It has now won a pedestrian-friendly award from the Worshipful Company of Paviors.

But Mr Rubenstein said: "The criticism of blueness is a reasonable point.

"I'm not going to say we haven't learnt lessons from this. We have.

"We were not really trying to make it as blue as possible. If we had wanted it to be blue it could have been.

Better communication

"The blueness comes from the glass and there is only a certain amount of glass you can use on the public highway.

"The way in which we communicated to people what it was going to be like, I happily acknowledge, could have been better.

"But the scheme Thomas Hetherwick, the artist, wanted is that on the ground.

"We have learnt lessons about managing the level of public expectation."