Olympic-themed street art on Brick Lane has been left untouched.
For many, London is the number one place in the world for street art.But now as the Olympics approaches, many artists are complaining that artwork is being removed in some areas but not in others.
Meandering among the market stalls and curry restaurants of Brick Lane in east London are people stopping to soak up the street art.
Tourists armed with camera phones and art lovers with high-end cameras all stand to absorb the stencils and murals which adorn every available space.
This is one of the few places in London where street art is celebrated.
In fact, an information point at Spitalfields market just down the road counts street art as a highlight.
But, according to street artists, this is not the case across the rest of London as walls which they say have not been touched in years are now being cleaned off.
Authorities say that there has been no official remit for graffiti to be removed -- rather, they just clean the walls if someone complains.
But Geoff Whitehouse from Very Nearly Almost, a magazine which documents street art, disagrees.
“It's been going on for over a year or more with a general clean-up around Hackney,” he says.
A spokesman for Hackney Council said it took time to decide whether something was graffiti or street art which should be preserved.
Helen Bingham, campaigns manager for Keep Britain Tidy, said: “There's a difference between low grade tagging and the work people like Banksy do. You have to look at it and know the difference -- it's not a black and white thing.”
On Monday, Banksy put pictures on his website of stencils with an Olympic-theme on a building. The location has not been revealed.
One artist who has had a piece painted over is Mau Mau.
His piece, a comment on the Games' alleged corporate and environmental impact, was painted on the side of a privately-owned warehouse which he had permission to paint in Ealing, west London, in July.
It lasted six days before it was painted over by the council.
“I kind of expected it (for it to be cleaned). I guess someone deemed it was offensive to the public,” he says.
A spokeswoman for Ealing Council said the piece was removed following a complaint.
In Brick Lane, a petition was set up to remove a large council banner which advertised the area as the “Olympic 2012 Curry Capital”, placed over street artist Roa's mural of a crane.
The petition said: “Everyday hundreds of people are captivated by a beautiful piece of artwork that was given to the people of Tower Hamlets by an internationally renowned artist.”
After it received more than 1,700 signatures, the banner was duly removed overnight by the council.
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