May 2025 - Community Art Project - M74 Spindlehowe Underpass Uddingston

30 May 2025

May 2025 - New Mural Project by SRP, with collaboration from 3 Primary Schools & a Local Street Artist.

On Friday 30th May 2025, pupils from three local primary schools in Uddingston met
for the first time as a group at Spindlehowe Pedestrian Underpass, after they all won
an art competition sponsored by Scottish Roads Partnership (SRP), the company
responsible for the M8 M73 M74 Motorway Improvements Project on behalf of
Transport Scotland. They are responsible for the maintenance of the M74 motorway,
including Spindlehowe Underpass at North British Road.
Twenty two pupils from St John the Baptist; Muiredge & Tannochside primary
schools won the competition in March of this year, which was open to P5 to P7
students and ran by SRP’s operations manager Graham Drummond. The children
got to meet each other and the local street artist Scott McKenzie (a.k.a TEF), who
was commissioned by SRP’s Mark Miller, to reproduce the winning art work onto the
walls of the 30 metre underpass. The idea was to create a new mural with an
environmental theme, displaying the natural world with wildlife, trees and other
features that are found living adjacent to our trunk roads. The pupils got to meet
each other and view the artwork on display as one whole collective piece, which now
forms a refreshing mural in the underpass.

The Underpass has been targeted in recent years by vandals, with graffiti a blight on the route, which is well used by pedestrians and cyclists, as a short cut between Uddingston and Tannochside/Viewpark. The new mural has received glowing testimonials from the community, bringing fun and enjoyment to its regular users, who smile with the realisation that local children collaborated in its design, with the hope that it remains intact and free from damage for years to come.

SRP’s General Manager Mark Miller & Operations Manager Graham Drummond would like to thank the teachers and children for taking part in the art competition and appreciate everyones efforts in creating this new mural. We appreciate the skill and hard work from the street artist TEF, who spent two weeks working in the underpass, transferring the children’s designs into a mural, to create an uplifting piece of artwork for the benefit of the community.  

For a map of SRP’s Trunk Road Network please refer to the Transport Scotland website (see link below):

https://www.transport.gov.scot/projects/m8-m73-m74-motorway-improvements/project-details/#

Ends.