Subway Deluxe bring Banksy-type art to Kidderminster

Two other subways were decorated in August 2010.

A project in Kidderminster aims to reduce the amount of graffiti in the town by involving young people in legitimate street art.

The Subway Deluxe project brought some of the country's leading street artists to the town to work alongside young people.

They decorated two subways on Comberton Hill with urban art.

In April 2010 a similar project painted a mural in the St. Mary's canal tunnel in Kidderminster.

In pictures: Subway street art

Bad image

Ian Walker, who travelled from Bristol to take part, says they hope to change the image of street art:

"If you speak to pretty much anybody they've heard of Banksy… so there's more appreciation of the street art style, as long as it's done well.

One of the artists involved travelled from Belgium

"Graffiti - the G word - does have a lot of negative connotations, because as soon as you mention graffiti people think of little tags scrawled on walls

"The kind of things we do are trying to elevate it beyond that sort of level, so that it is a valid art work, rather than someone with a big fat marker pen who's gone and scrawled their name."

DinDin, another street artist who came from Belgium to help with the project, also hopes it will alter people's perceptions:

"There is a difference between street art and graffiti - graffiti writing is more like tagging and I don't like that, often it's very ugly - street art is making the streets more beautiful."

Jonquille Ives, one of the local young people creating the artwork, says she has had a very positive reaction from the public:

"Earlier I had a guy walk past who said that it was a good thing we were doing, I've had a lot of smiles - it's certainly improved that state of the subways, it's made them less scary to walk through at night as well."