St Helens Council leader denies sculpture is an ’embarrassment’

A council leader has denied being “embarrassed” about a piece of public art in St Helens but admitted the local authority could do more to promote it.

Dream, which features a young girl’s head looking out across the M62, stands on the former spoil heap of the old Sutton Manor Colliery.

A group of ex-miners who were instrumental in bringing the giant sculpture to the region have complained that it can no longer be seen from the motorway because trees are in the way.

Council leader Anthony Burns said that while the sculpture should be celebrated, being “hidden” in the forest was all part of its charm.

He told BBC Radio Merseyside: “It isn’t an embarrassment – it’s a fantastic achievement for the ex-miners and the borough.”

Burns claimed it was always the artist Jaume Plensa’s intention for it to be “hidden, and as you walk up, it appears within the trees”.

The BBC has approached Plensa for comment.

Burns said he did not want drivers on the M62 to be distracted by the artwork, especially were it to be illuminated at night.

However, he said the council “could do more to promote it” and said he would “happily support anyone” who came up with a business plan to bring a café and toilet facilities to the site.

Burns said this was not something the council could afford.

Richard Topley, from Forestry England which manages the land around the public artwork, said “the sculpture was always conceived” to be “within a forest, and the trees naturally will grow around it”.

He said this immersion in nature gave the sculpture “quite a unique setting”.

But he acknowledged the concerns of those who thought it was too hidden and said Forestry England would look at ways to open up some new views.

Mr Topley said: “I think as the forest gets older and we thin it – which is taking out some of the unwanted trees – you’ll start to get a different view of it from different places as well, which actually might show off more of the structure, intermingled with this tree backdrop that it sits nicely in.”