Banksy artworks have cost UK taxpayers almost £150,000 in cleaning and security

[Coder65]

Three Banksy artworks have cost UK taxpayers and public bodies almost £150,000 in cleaning, security and other costs so far, with the bill expected to keep rising, according to figures obtained by the BBC through Freedom of Information requests

The largest single cost by far relates to a mural painted on the Royal Courts of Justice in London back in September 2025, depicting a judge in a wig beating a protester with his gavel, widely interpreted as commentary on the wave of arrests during protests against the UK governments ban on Palestine Action, the Ministry of Justice told the BBC it spent £50,000 trying to remove the paint from the wall of the Grade II listed building on Carey Street, with a further £35,300 spent on overtime and security, bringing that single piece to more than £85,000, the mural was swiftly covered with black plastic sheeting and metal barriers and guarded by security before eventually being scrubbed off entirely, HM Courts and Tribunals Service said it was obliged to maintain the buildings original character given its listed status

The second major cost comes from a Banksy statue of a man carrying a flag that covers his face, installed on a plinth in Waterloo Place near Trafalgar Square in April 2026, Westminster City Council, which owns the land, said it has spent around £60,000 on a safety barrier around the statue plus admin fees and a security guard, Banksy took responsibility for the piece through his own Instagram videos, and a smaller cost involved a 2024 piranha mural painted on a City of London Police sentry box, which cost £2,200 to remove

The spending has genuinely reignited the long running debate over whether Banksys work constitutes vandalism or valuable public art, particularly when it appears on historic or listed buildings, shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy was blunt in his criticism, calling it outrageous that tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money will have to be spent cleaning up after Banksy, who seems to believe he has a right to deface public buildings with impunity, arguing the artist should foot the bill for the costs he imposes on others, art critic Estelle Lovatt offered a starkly different take, defending Banksys work as genuine public art worth visiting, drawing a comparison to how some people visit Buckingham Palace and others visit Banksys art

The Metropolitan Police confirmed it received a report of criminal damage relating to the Royal Courts of Justice mural on September 8th 2025, and said the investigation remains ongoing with no arrests made so far, criminal damage carries a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment if the damage exceeds £5,000, worth noting the broader context too, Banksys identity has remained a genuine mystery since his first known work appeared in 1999, and despite these substantial cleanup costs, his authenticated pieces have sold at auction for staggering sums, with some individual works fetching upwards of £18 million

Bristol artist Banksy's works cost taxpayers nearly £150kwww.bbc.co.uk

[DarkFreddy65]

The outrageous framing from the shadow justice secretary conveniently ignores that a genuinely irremovable Banksy on a listed government building was always going to cost real money either way, whether you remove it or preserve it, thats just the reality of unauthorized work on protected architecture

[Electric Holly]

Some people visit Buckingham Palace and others visit Banksys art is such a sharp line from the art critic, genuinely captures how much cultural weight and tourist draw his work carries even when it appears somewhere its technically not welcome

[Cole99]

£85,000 for one mural on a government building versus individual authenticated Banksy pieces selling for £18 million at auction is such a stark contrast, the public bears the cleanup cost while the private art market captures all the actual value his work generates

[WaveFunction]

Banksy taking public responsibility for the Waterloo Place statue through his own Instagram is an interesting move, hes clearly not hiding from the attention or consequences even while maintaining anonymity about his actual identity

[Gareth84]

The ongoing criminal investigation with zero arrests after nearly a year really shows how genuinely difficult it is to prosecute an artist this famous for anonymity, even with a maximum 10 year sentence on the books for damage this size

[AlwaysReadyHenry32]

£150,000 total across three pieces is honestly not that staggering a sum in the context of overall public spending, but the outrage is understandable given how directly and visibly its tied to one specific artists actions rather than being buried in a broader budget line

[NightHarbour91]

Would be curious what actually happens to the £50,000 spent trying to remove the paint, if a Banksy on a wall thats later removed can still sometimes be sold or preserved elsewhere thats a strange kind of value destruction happening purely because of where it was originally painted

[CodeOracle]

Grade II listed status requiring maintenance of original character is a real legal obligation that has nothing to do with whether people think the art is good or bad, the building has protections regardless of who painted on it or why

[BiancaBelair_WCW]

This whole debate keeps recurring every time Banksy does a new piece and it never really gets resolved, some people will always see it as vandalism deserving punishment and others will always see it as valuable cultural commentary worth preserving, the split seems genuinely unbridgeable at this point

[Kev49]

Political commentary through street art on the actual Royal Courts of Justice building is about as pointed a piece of political theater as you can get, choosing that specific location clearly wasnt accidental given the subject matter about protest and justice