NEWPORT'S Chartist mural is to be replaced with a replica when the city's Friars Walk development is completed.

In a meeting of the planning committee yesterday, Newport councillors voted 6-1 in favour of replacing the thirty-year-old mural, located in John Frost Square, with a copy.

A storm of protest erupted when it was first revealed the mural, built in the tunnel between John Frost Square and Austin Friars, would have to go because of the Modus Properties £200m city centre redevelopment.

A petition of 2,700 signatures were collected by 10-year-old Carlton French in favour of saving the mural which represents a key part of the city's history, the Chartist Uprising of 1839 which ended in bloodshed outside the Westgate Hotel.

But replacing it was the preferred option to removing the entire 35-metre long mural, which consists of more than 200,000 pieces of broken tile and Venetian smalti, and reassembling it when the new shopping complex is built.

The other alternative was to demolish the mural and spend the £250,000 - the developer's entire public art budget on contemporary artwork.

The decision to recreate the mural depicting the rise of the Chartists is estimated to cost £210,000 leaving a further £40,000 for additional public art.

The existing mural is to be photographed and recorded and the records made available to the Newport museum.

Patrick Drewett of the Accent Newport Trust said "People will still be enthralled by the savagery and rawness because it is not just the tiles we love, it's the passion of the Chartists we admire."

Oliver Budd, son of the original creator, Kenneth Budd holds the original design drawings for the mural, meaning the creation of a replica is relatively straightforward.

The replica mural will be purpose-built for its location and would be built onto panel sections allowing it to be removed easily for repair or relocation.

Councillor David Hando had said: "It would be municipal vandalism if we got rid of it and replaced it with something else."

The replacement will now be discussed with developers Modus and a location will be decided by the planning committee on a future date.