5,000 knives donated for Oswestry man's 'beat knife crime' sculpture
Metal sculptor Alfie Bradley has his work cut out sorting through more than 5,000 knives which have been donated to a campaign to beat knife crime.
But the haul has barely scratched the surface of the 100,000 total needed to build a 20ft sculpture of an angel at the British Ironwork Centre, near Oswestry.
The statue will be a memorial to the victims of knife crime and each of the feathers on its wings will be made of a knife blade.
Clive Knowles, chairman of the British Ironwork Centre, launched the campaign 18 months ago following the success of a giant spoon gorilla created for Uri Geller.
He said: "We're aiming for 100,000 knives. It took 40,000 spoons for the gorilla and our original estimate was 5,000, so we are being very cautious now."
The majority of the knives donated to the Save a Life – Surrender your Knife campaign have come from West Mercia and Warwickshire Police forces.
Inspector Rik Klair and Oswestry Sergeant Scott Barnes arranged for all the knives seized and surrendered in the two force areas over the past two years to be donated to the campaign.
Mr Bradley is now checking through the knives to see what sizes and shapes he has before starting to put the angel together later this year.
He said: "Each blade will become a feather. We'll be inviting families affected by knife crime, chief police officers, politicians, celebrities, community leaders and ex-gang members who've renounced violence to weld their own knifes in place or symbolically help with its construction. I expect the angel to be completed in the autumn."
In Shropshire 343 knife crimes have been reported to police in the past two years.
