A MURAL created to celebrate beloved pooches will be obscured now council homes are to be built on the site.

The giant graffiti mural was originally created for the Brighton Festival and featured more than 50 pooches from across the city and beyond.

But now their smiling faces are being covered up, one concrete block at a time.

The development on the site of the mural is set to provide 12 new council homes.

Among those on the wall in Kensington Street, Brighton, was staffy-cross Max who passed away in 2016.

His owner, dog-lover Tracey Davidson from Brighton, is sad to see her precious pooch replaced by concrete.

Tracey said: “I’m just absolutely heartbroken because it meant the world to me to have my wonderful dog Max memorialised in such a phenomenal way.

“I always used to walk past and say hi to Max but now I can’t.

“I just thought I might have got a few more years out of it.”

Max was memorised on the wall one week before he died in 2016.

Tracey said: “Max was my heart and soul. He came into my life as a rescue dog but he saved me far more than I saved him.”

Brighton photographer Nigel Maudsley, 65, took many of the pictures of the dogs on the wall.

His dog, a Cockapoo named Pop who was named after his late father, was also featured on the artwork.

He said: “It was really nice when it happened for The Fringe. My dog was used to the fame - he used to be a model. He was in an newspaper advert once, half a page in the Daily Mirror.

“But now his modelling career has come to an end.”

Although “heartbreaking,” the mural has somewhat of a bittersweet ending as the artwork and all the dogs it contains will remain underneath the brickwork, untouched until the next development far in the future.