A GROUP of talented youngsters have been commissioned to produce artwork to brighten up the hoardings around Hungate’s urban neighbourhood development.

The four to 11-year-olds from Funfishers Out Of School Club, based at Fishergate Primary School, York, gained their contract after creating a number of colourful Christmas posters for the site.

Martina Collins, sales and marketing director at Hungate Marketing Suite in York city centre, was so impressed by the artwork that she has asked Funfishers to provide further pieces of art for use at Hungate to celebrate other key dates in the calendar.

She said: “The Christmas posters are so bright and cheerful, that we thought it would be great if the children would be able to provide art representing other seasonal events such as Valentine’s Day and Easter.

“We have had community art displays on the hoardings since we began developing Hungate, including pictures supplied by schools, York Archaeological Trust and the historic photos of the city from The Press’s archive which are currently in place, but this is the first time that we have commissioned a series of pictures to run through the year.

“The children at Funfishers all attend either Fishergate Primary School or St George’s RC Primary School, which are the closest schools to Hungate, and I am thrilled that they will be helping us to brighten up the hoardings with other pictures in the coming months.”

Lesley Calvert, manager of Funfishers, said: “The children have all really enjoyed working together to produce the posters and are thrilled that they will have more chances to contribute to their local community in the coming months.

“Working on the posters gave them a real sense of teamwork and achievement and they were quite disappointed when the art was completed so they were very excited when they heard that they had been commissioned to do more.”